How to Overcome Procrastination?

How to Overcome Procrastination?

We will read about the simple formula for overcoming procrastination.

Firstly, it's understanding motivation.

Secondly, it's understanding momentum,

and then we will talk about three rules for getting out of the slump.

INTRODUCTION:

Regardless of how many productivity books we've bought and haven't read, or how many of Matt and Tom's videos we've watched. We all struggle with procrastination, but procrastination is nothing new. 10,000 years ago the ancient Greek philosophers even had a word for it, akrasia, meaning to act against our better judgment by doing one thing, even though we know we should be doing something else. But despite its ancient history, it's probably even more prevalent today as we live in a world full of distractions and perfect procrastination temptation.

So, how do we overcome it?

Procrastination is the perfect example of a thing called present bias. Present bias is this idea that I can set whatever goal I want for my future self, but it's my present self sitting here right now that has to actually do the action to get there. And when it's a choice between doing some exercise or watching some episodes of Hunter × Hunter, we can always say, "Well, I'll do the exercise tomorrow." And our present selves will always prefer the short-term instant gratification of watching a random anime rather than the long-term goal of becoming a gym shark athlete.

A 2013 study by a famous researcher in the field of procrastination, Dr. Tim Pychyl, called procrastination the primacy of short-term mood repair over the long-term pursuit of intended actions.

In other words, procrastination is more about being focused on the immediate urgency of managing negative moods and pushing the problem away, rather than getting on with the task in the present moment.

So say I have to do my homework, but I get a notification from Instagram, I start to look through the notification and gradually spend 30 or 45 minutes scrolling through the feed page and reels and procrastination is actively holding me back from doing my Homework.

But the good news is we can do something about it. And there is a simple formula to overcoming procrastination that I've discovered over the last couple of days.

And that's really helped me personally, in fighting the procrastination bustle.

 

MOTIVATION:

Firstly, let's talk about motivation.

And there was a blog post that I stumbled across a few years ago. That was a real paradigm shifter for my mind in terms of how I think about motivation. Like I used to think that you need the motivation to get something done, but actually, it's the other way around. 

You get stuff done, and then the motivation naturally follows. And this is something that Jeff Haden talks about this in his book, "The Motivation Myth."  It talks about we've got this idea of motivation all wrong. He says, "Motivation isn't something that you have, it's something that you get." He says that "Motivation is not the cause of action, it is the result of an action." So it's like, the action comes first, motivation comes second.

So the way that I think about it is that I try and scrap the word motivation from my vocabulary. And instead, I think about it in terms of either discipline or in terms of habits. Discipline is energy that we've put into the system. We're using our willpower. We are being disciplined, we are doing the thing, but then once we do the thing often enough, it becomes a habit and we don't need the willpower to do habits.

Like I don't need the willpower to brush my teeth every night for the most part, but I do need the discipline to get up in the morning and read e-books like The Silent Patient(A very creepy book btw) because getting up in the morning has not yet become a habit. So part one of this formula for overcoming procrastination was understanding motivation.

UNDERSTANDING MOMENTUM:

The second part is about understanding momentum. And the key insight here is that most of the resistance that we feel when doing a task is just in the act of starting. This idea of resistance is discussed by Steven Press field in his book, "The War of Art." He describes resistance as a universal force that has one sole mission, to keep things as they are, preventing action, creativity, and progress. In other words, resistance provides the beating heart of procrastination.

But as soon as we cross this action line, then the pain of procrastination begins to go down.

And so the idea is that it's not doing the work that's hard, it is starting the work.

That is the problem. It's kind of like, if you had a ball at the top of a hill, you can't get the ball moving unless you physically push it. But once you've pushed it, it starts rolling down the hill, and then momentum carries it forward.

And so if I feel like I'm struggling with procrastination, I know that the real problem is just in that initial push, it's just in getting started.

And I've got three rules that I try to use if I'm struggling to get started with doing something.

TWO MINUTE RULE:

The two-minute rule is a concept put forward by productivity guru, David Allen in his book, "Getting Things Done." And the main idea is that if you have a pending task that can be done in less than two minutes, then you should do it right away.

And so if I'm procrastinating from doing something that I know is going to take less than two minutes. I will try my very best to just do it.

And I will have this mantra that no, no, no, I must follow David Allen's two-minute rule. So if it comes to, I don't know, refilling my water bottle or, you know, putting a coffee mug or a bowl away in the kitchen and washing it, I know all of that's going to take less than two minutes. And so I kind of force myself to just do it.

It's the two-minute rule, but if it takes longer, then I'll write it down.

But clearly, there's stuff that we've got to do that's obviously gonna take longer than two minutes.

So we can't trick our brains into thinking,

"Oh, it's fine, it's only gonna be two minutes."

THE FIVE MINUTE RULE:

The five-minute rule is simple.

It's that if I'm finding myself procrastinating on something I have to do, I tell myself that I'm just going to do it for five minutes.

Some people call this the 30-minute rule, 20-minute rule, 10-minute rule, it doesn't really matter.

The point is we're tricking our brains into thinking that all we want to do is do the thing,

do the work for a certain small amount of time. And so when I was procrastinating from filming this video, what I told myself is, "Taran, all you have to do is shoot the introduction of the blog. It'll take five minutes and then you can stop if you want to." But here I am three hours later, still struggling to finish this blog because the problem is in getting started, not in continuing to do the work.

MIND ACTIVATION RULE:

Other than the two-minute rule and the five-minute rule, the third rule that I like to follow is the mind activation rule. And that is if I'm feeling like I'm in a slump, which usually happens directly after lunch or in the evening when I've come home from work, and I really can't be bothered to do anything.

I'm procrastinating from writing this blog, whatever I need to get done.

And the mind activation rule is that when I recognize that feeling, that kind of haze in my mind, it's like, "Oh, I can't be bothered to do anything." At that point, I need to do something to stimulate my mind. If it's before 2:00 PM in the afternoon, then I'll make myself a cup of caffeinated coffee.

But if it's after 2:00 PM, I like to use a non-pharmacological method. And that is by doing an online course over at Udemy.

So we've talked about the simple formula for overcoming procrastination.

Firstly, it's understanding motivation.

Secondly, it's understanding momentum,

and then we've talked about three rules for getting out of the slump. So the two-minute rule, the five-minute rule, and the mind activation rule.

If you made it this far, Congratulations! Hope you are clear on how to stop procrastinating.

I will write a PART 2 blog on the same topic! Stay tuned!

Adios!