Efficient Ways To Overcome Procrastination?
“My advice is to never do tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time.”– Charles Dickens
I have read all of the posts and listened to all the podcasts regarding procrastination. I have tried all the tips — including literally trying to trick myself.
Sometimes hacks work. Occasionally a post about how bad a habit procrastination is will kick me into gear and allow me to get things done for a change.
However, it never lasts. I have never completely kicked evaluation to the curb. When I am on a busy bent, I am still a procrastinator in mind.
When I had just about given up on curing my bad habit, I came across a concept of procrastination I had never heard about, and it totally altered the way I think of procrastination.
The reality is, procrastination is much more about our emotions compared to our trends for laziness or simply being “poor at deadlines”. In its heart we procrastinate to maintain ourselves happy in the moment — making complete sense, right? In other words, until we are pulling an all-nighter to fulfill that customer deadline we had weeks to get ready for.
Recognizing why we procrastinate enables us to create powerful strategies for getting started on our significant projects today, instead of awaiting tomorrow. Here is what I have found in my own trip to quit putting things off for later, along with the definite measures I have discovered along the way to cover the main cause of my own procrastination.
Why we procrastinate
Procrastination is thought to come from an emotional reaction to whatever it’s that you’re preventing. Researchers call this phenomenon “mood mend”, in which we prevent the uncomfortable feelings related to our work by spending time on mood-enhancing actions, like playing games, watching movies or hanging on social media.
Putting off the task at hand is an effective way of regulating this mood. Avoid the task, avoid the bad mood.
Obviously, the mood lift is necessarily short-term. Studies of college students have found the habit of putting off things simply increases negative feelings in the future. Even though procrastinators tended to be less stressed and healthier in the first school term, by the next term those results were actually reversed.
This brings us to the next key insight into the reason why we procrastinate: study shows that our brains are now wired to think about our future and present selves as two separate men and women. That’s why we’re ready to prioritize our current mood at the expense of our upcoming well-being even though it’s an absurd decision in the long-term.
A study run by UCLA psychologist Hal Herschel and a team at Stanford University found that participants actually engaged different areas of the brain when they thought about their present selves versus their future selves. In fact, when people were told to think about themselves in ten years, their brain patterns closely resembled those observed when they were asked to think about celebrities they didn’t know.
This separation of present and future self encourages us to make various decisions about ourselves today and in the long term. For instance, one study revealed people asked to coach other students would offer to do less in the present, but might offer more of their time in the long run.
To sum up the research, we procrastinate because our brains are wired to care more about our present comfort than our future happiness.
Are procrastination and laziness the same?
Though the two words can often be confused to mean the same thing, they are, in fact, not the same at all.
Laziness is being able to carry out a task that we ought to do, but not being disciplined enough to do so because of the effort involved. Procrastination, on the other hand, is where you put off one task in favor of another that is perceived as more pleasurable but is typically less important.
The procrastinator and the lazy person both lack the motivation to do the task. The procrastinator does eventually do the task, just at a higher cost to him/herself. (You know, like starting at midnight the night before something is due.)
So what can we do about it?
How to overcome your procrastination habit
It’s clear that we have two ways of dealing with our procrastination:
Make whatever we’re procrastinating on feel less uncomfortable, and
Convince our present selves into caring about our future selves.
Here are 8 concrete strategies you can start using today to address the root cause of your procrastination…
1. Make getting started ridiculously easy
“If you want to make an easy job seem mighty hard, just keep putting off doing it.” — Olin Miller
A real mood boost comes from doing what we intend to do — the things that are important to us. Knowing this, we can reason that although getting started might feel uncomfortable, we’re likely to feel much better once the task is done. Compare the mood boost of having done what you intended to do, to the disappointment and frustration of dealing with the consequences of procrastination later.
Progress — no matter how small — can be a huge motivator to help us keep going.
My favorite trick for getting into a task I’m dreading, is to start with the mindset. I start by just thinking about the task for a while, until I’m drawn in and can’t help working on it.
2. Do the right thing for the wrong reason
“Think of many things; do one.” — Portuguese proverb
Since negative emotions are the cause of our procrastination, what if we could manage our negative emotions while working?
The reason why this works is because people are not wired to take care of things which will take place far to the future. When it will be in our own best interests to take into consideration the long run, we are focused on what makes us feel great today. This makes it difficult to perform unpleasant things that would benefit us later on.
Take it as a global warming example. It’s hard to care about global warming because we don’t see the signs of it regularly, we don’t see people suffering, and it’s not going to affect us seriously until far in the future. But if you feel self-important when you drive a Toyota Prius, because it makes you feel like you’re a good person, and it shows others that you’re a good person, then you might be more likely to do so. You’d be doing the right thing (switching to a hybrid car) for the wrong reason (your self-image).
3. Ask for help
“A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer.” — Bruce Lee
When my work directly affects others, I find it much harder to accept the consequences of procrastination.
To place this to practice, you could ask a friend or colleague to help you get started on something you’ve been putting off. Having somebody else work with you can stave off the boredom and isolation which make working independently a drag. And having someone else invested in the work can give you extra motivation to have it finished, even if they are not around the whole time you are working with it.
This may be especially useful once you’re worried. Studies have demonstrated talking your feelings of anxiety with somebody else at a similar psychological state can relieve your feelings of anxiety. Therefore, if you are working with different people and you are all concerned about an approaching deadline, consider talking about the situation instead of internalizing your personal concerns.
Although this seems extreme, a sympathetic colleague, mentor, friend, or sibling might be willing to help out if you don’t always rely on this approach.
4. Imagine the future
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” ― Eleanor Roosevelt
Imagining as vividly as possible the idea of living on your current retirement savings, if saving for retirement is something you’ve been putting off.
Making the task of time travel more concrete can help its effectiveness.
Another way to use this method is to realistically imagine how you’ll feel tomorrow, if you’re trying the old “I’ll feel like doing this tomorrow” excuse. it’s highly unlikely we will feel more motivated tomorrow so time traveling may help us realize this, and stop relying on the “tomorrow” excuse.
5. Reframe your task and its deadline
“The ultimate inspiration is the deadline.” — Nolan Bushnell
Have you ever tried to trick yourself to get your work done? I tried this many times — my favorite approach was to pretend my deadline was actually today, not tomorrow, so I’d get started earlier.
But it never worked.
I just couldn’t get past the fact that I was trying to lie to myself. The rest of my brain knew what I was saying was a lie, so why would that ever work?
Another study of procrastination found reframing the task itself, rather than adjusting its deadline, was effective in helping procrastinators get to work. Participants in this study were asked to complete a puzzle, but were allowed to play Tetris for a while first.
When the puzzle was described as “cognitive evaluation”, procrastinators spent more time playing Tetris and avoiding the puzzle. When the puzzle was introduced as a game, however, the chronic procrastinators in the study got sucked into the puzzle as quickly as anyone else.
You might not always be able to convince yourself that your work is a game, but look for ways to reframe it.
I use this approach by reframing my task into a challenge. I say to myself, “Can you get this work done today, so that you have tomorrow free to do whatever you want? Go on, try it”. Or, “Hey, what if you got this work done before lunchtime? You could go out somewhere new for lunch and not even worry about doing more work when you get home. Go for it!”
My competitive nature wakes up when I give it a challenge. I like the idea of proving something, so this is a good way to “trick” my brain into getting stuck into some work I’ve been avoiding.
6. Let yourself avoid uncomfortable tasks
If you can not quit procrastinating, the fantastic news is that may utilize this “bad” addiction to your advantage. “Structured procrastination” is a clever way to remain productive even as you procrastinate.
The key to understanding structured procrastination is recognizing that procrastinating does not mean doing absolutely nothing.
Here’s how it works: next time you feel the urge to procrastinate, go for it. Avoid that Big Scary Task that makes you feel really uncomfortable. But instead of spending time on Facebook, YouTube or watching Netflix, work on something else productive. Choose anything else from your task list, and spend your time procrastinating by working on a less important or urgent task that makes you feel less uncomfortable.
Breaks procrastination into three types, depending on what you do instead of that Big Task you’re avoiding:
You do nothing
You do something less important
You do something more important
The trick to “good procrastination”, is avoiding the less important, more urgent things on your to do list to work on really important work.
7. Set a time tracking software
“The key is in not spending time, but in investing it.” — Stephen R. Covey
Time tracking software(my favorite is timeTracko) work wonders for helping you manage your time, input, and ultimately, output better.
Missing deadlines, stress, and wasting precious business opportunities are three of the many unfortunate consequences of bad time management. timeTracko helps you to stay on your track and measure productivity according to browsing history of your computer.
If you having trouble with it . You can also try Pomodoro Technique in this software.
8. Eat the Frog
“The hardest part of any important task is getting started on it in the first place. Once you actually begin work on a valuable task, you seem to be naturally motivated to continue.” ― Brian Tracy
Brain Tracy has a book called “Eat That Frog! 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time.” . He defines frogs as tasks that you have to do. He recommends that you should eat the biggest, ugliest frog (the task that you least want to do) first and to finish it completely. That way the rest of the tasks you have to do in a day are easier.
When you’re facing an intimidating endeavor, procrastination can appear almost inevitable. It is not something most people can only opt to quit doing through sheer force of will. But knowing why we are more prone to procrastination and how to operate with this particular dependence, or about it, will help us avert the worst effects of preventing work.
The man who waits to know everything is the man who never does anything.
