How to Stop Procrastinating
- 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?
Hey friends, welcome back to the channel.
If you're new here, my name is Ali.
I'm a doctor working in the UK,
and on this channel We explore the strategies
and tools to help us live healthier, happier,
more productive lives.
But even for a self-professed productivity guru like me,
one of my biggest struggles
in life is overcoming procrastination.
So why do we procrastinate?
Well, I'm very glad you asked.
because 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 the famous researcher in the field
of procrastination, Dr. Tim Pychyl,
called the 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.
The weird thing is that at certain times we can't afford
to procrastinate.
Like when I'm at work at the hospital,
I can't just put off treating someone until tomorrow.
The idea of delaying it because I don't feel
like putting a cannula in does not even cross my mind.
Also I tell people, but one I've got the space and freedom
to manage my own time at home,
I can always just keep putting things off
until the next day.
And rationally we all know
that procrastination is objectively bad for us.
Like for me, one of my biggest fears
in life is being shackled to a job
that I might not enjoy.
And I know that right now, I'm at the age
and I've got the opportunity to not procrastinate
and build towards a future where I've got the freedom
to kind of do what I want.
And procrastination is actively holding me back from that.
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 years.
And that's really helped me personally,
in fighting the procrastination bustle.
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 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 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 action."
So it's like, action comes first, motivation comes second.
And 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 willpower to do habits.
Like I don't need willpower to brush my teeth every night
for the most part, but I do need discipline
to get up and go to the gym,
because going to the gym has not yet become a habit.
So part one of this formula for overcoming procrastination
was understanding motivation.
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 are discussed by Steven Pressfield
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.
Firstly, we've got the 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."
And that's where the five minute rule comes in.
The five minute rule is simple.
It's that if I'm finding myself procrastinating
from 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, "Ali, all you have
to do is shoot the introduction.
It'll take five minutes
and then you can stop if you want to."
But here I am three hours later,
still struggling to form the video,
because the problem is in getting started,
not in continuing to do the work.
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 filming the videos
or 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 Brilliant,
who are very kindly sponsoring this video.
If you haven't heard, Brilliant is a fantastic platform
for maths science and computer science courses.
The courses are super interactive
and they've got lots of problems along the way.
So the idea is that they teach you a little bit of something
and then they do an interactive kind of problem
to help activate the mind to get you out of
that procrastination slump.
And you learn something along the way.
I really enjoyed working
through the computer science courses in Brilliant.
They've got a fantastic introduction to computer science,
introduction to algorithms,
and also more complicated topics
like neural networks, machine learning.
And they also have a very good course on the basics
of Python and also an advanced Python,
Python being the world's most popular programming language.
Brilliant works across all platforms.
And it's the perfect way to kickstart your mind
into learning something useful,
while also overcoming the productivity slump.
So if that sounds up your street,
then head over to brilliant.org/ali,
and the first 200 people to click on
that link in the video description will get 20%
off the annual premium subscription.
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 wanna hear more, you should definitely check
out my book club video
about "The Motivation Myth."
It is pretty good.
That will be linked in the playlist over here,
along with some other videos that you might find helpful.
Thank you for watching and I'll see you in the next video.
Bye-bye.
(gentle music)
