End of
Procrastination
Productive
Procrastination
The creative process takes time, so when you set a
project aside for a few days or weeks, your mind can wander. That extra time
spent mental wandering gives you the ability to came up with more creative, “divergent”
ideas that enhance your project.
Productive procrastination was a hugely liberating
concept for me to learn, especially while struggling to write this book. Before
I learned about productive procrastination, I beat myself up constantly because
I kept feeling burnt out, I had writer’s block, and I thought it meant I was a
bad writer, lazy, or incapable. In truth, a creative process of this magnitude
just took time.
My mind needed breaks and time to wander. It took me
seven months longer than I thought it would to finish and the book is 100 time
better for it. If you’re not getting the results that you want, give the
project some time, go focus your energy somewhere else, and then come back
later with fresh eyes.
So, if you are working on a creative project, and you
don’t have a fixed deadline, it’s not procrastination if you let your work sit
for a few weeks so you can let you mind wander. It’s the creative process. Those
fresh new ideas you have as you procrastinate productively will make your work
even smarter.
Destructive
Procrastination
Destructive procrastination is an
entirely different animal. It’s when we avoid the work we need to get done and
know there will be negative consequences. This habit really comes back to bite
you in the end.
Every one of us has a pile of stuff we can’t
seem to get to: updating photo albums, analyzing a spreadsheet, finishing a proposal,
or plowing through a to-do list that would grow your business. It’s anything
that we find ourselves deliberately avoiding that really needs to get done.
Procrastination is not a from of laziness at all. It’s
a coping mechanism for stress.
A common
mistake we all make is thinking that people make a deliberate choice to
procrastinate. In fact, most people who struggle with procrastination tell
researchers that they feel like they have no control over it. And they are
right, because they don’t understand the real reason why we procrastinate.
We procrastinate because we feel stressed
out. Here’s the catch… you aren’t stressed about the work. You are stressed
about the bigger stuff: money, relationship problem, or life in general. When you
blow off work or studying for 15 minutes of online shopping or watching the highlights
of last night’s game, you are taking a mini stress-break from the bigger stress
you feel overall.
It’s
like emotional eating for the mind. When you avoid something that feels hard,
you get a sense of relief. Plus, when you do something you enjoy, like surfing
Facebook or laughing at viral videos, you a get a short-term boost of dopamine.
The more often that you procrastinate, the more likely you’ll repeat the
behavior. Here’s the problem: while you get a small boost of relief when you
watch cat videos, over time the work that you are avoiding builds and that
creates more stress in your life.
Forgive
Yourself
The first thing research tells us: you need to forgive
yourself for procrastinating.
Stop
the cycle by forgiving yourself. Scott, you’ve got to take five seconds, 5- 4-
3- 2- 1 forgive yourself for upsetting people, falling behind, and not working to
your full potential. If you can recognize that your stress about finances are
driving the procrastination at the lab, now you’ve got a chance to assert
yourself and take control. You want to take control so you can achieve your
goals. And that person you hope to become can help you right now.
What
would the Future You Do?
“Present
self” versus our “Future self”. Our “future self” is the person that we want to
become. Interestingly, research proves that when you can picture the “Future
you,” it give you the objective to push yourself in the present moment. In
experiments when researchers show people their own pictures digitally aged,
they’re more likely to save for retirement. I guess that’s an explanation for
why vision boards work. They help you envision the Future you and that is a
great coping mechanism for the stress you experience today as the Present You.
So, Scott, create a vision board or a mental image of what your life looks like
when all this grad school stress is behind you and you are Professor Scott. The
moment you feel yourself procrastinating, just ask yourself.
5
SecondRule
·
If procrastinating is a habit, you have to replace the bad behavior
pattern (avoidance) with a new positive one (getting started).
·
The moment you feel yourself hesitate, doing easier tasks, or avoiding
hard work, use the Rule, 5- 4- 3- 2- 1 push yourself to start the important
thing you need to do.
·
Getting started takes us back to our engineer at CISCO and the concept
of a “locus of control.” Procrastination makes you feel like you have no
control over yourself. When you assert yourself and just get started, you are
taking control of the moment and your life.
How
you can most effectively use the 5SecondRule to beat procrastination: use it to
make yourself start. Start small. Attack what you are avoiding for just 15
minutes at a time. Then, take a break and watch a few cat videos. And for
crying out loud, give yourself a break for blowing things off until now. You’re
only human.
All
of this stuff is common sense. You eat the elephant (in the room) one bite at a
time. What we are learning over and over and over in this book is that unless
you beat the feelings that trigger your bad habits, and you push yourself to
just get started, you’ll never change.
You’ll either find a way or you’ll find an excuse.
Taken
from The 5SsecondRule
Writing
by Arshad. A
