Procrastination
Jane B. Burka & Lenora M. Yuen
Book Overview from the Publisher
Offers a practical, tested program to overcome procrastination by achieving set goals, managing
time, enlisting support, and handling stress.
Based on their workshops and counseling experience, psychologists Jane B. Burka and Lenora M. Yuen
offer a probing, sensitive, and at times humorous look at a problem that affects everyone: students and
scientists, secretaries and executives, homemakers and salespeople. Procrastination identifies the
reasons we put off tasks-fears of failure, success, control, separation, and attachment-and their roots in
our childhood and adult experiences. Burka and Yuen even provide tips on living and working with the
procrastinators you may know.
Wise, effective, and easy to use, this new edition shows why for 25 years Procrastination has been an
immediate must-have for anyone who puts things off until tomorrow.
KEY POINTS COVERED IN THIS SUMMARY:
1. Un-schedule - Follow this counterintuitive strategy to prevent
procrastination
2. Swiss cheese method - A simple method to defeat procrastination
3. Right kind of goals - How do you know you are setting the right
kinds of goals in ways that won’t let you procrastinate?
1) Un-schedule
Why we procrastinate
A lot of times people procrastinate because they believe they have a lot of time available to
themselves. Hence they keep on kicking the can down and they keep on delaying their work.
The strategy: Un-scheduling
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Unscheduling is a counterintuitive strategy to defeat procrastination. Here’s how it works:
● Take your calendar and fill in all the available time where you want to have fun.
● Fill in all your other obligations other than work. These could include:
○ Your workout time
○ Time with family
○ Time with friends
○ Time for your hobbies
● Fill out all the other things in your calendar before you even think of work.
● Track your time use every time in your calendar for whatever you do. Put in your
calendar what you did last time -- what you do with the last 30 minutes, 40 minutes,
and so on.
When you fill in all this time in your calendar other than work, you have created constraints for
yourself. You have created these windows where you cannot work. Now you see you only have
a limited amount of time available to get work done.
Having limited time to get work done will get you to focus. You realize you don't have as much
time to get work done as you might have initially thought. You only have a few hours every day
for that, so now you actually become much more focused.
Tracking your time use simply allows you to see how you're using your time.
Again, the key is to give yourself very limited time to get your work done because all other time
is used up for your obligations. These constraints will always kick you to get more proactive and
to not procrastinate on your task and get the work done right away.
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2) Swiss Cheese Method
The so-called Swiss cheese method is a really simple method to defeat procrastination.
To apply this method, follow these steps:
● Your task is like a big block of Swiss cheese. Punch holes at random locations into this
task. This means you pick any part of that task and work on it for a certain amount of
time -- let's say a 15-minute chunk of time.
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● Set your timer for that 15 minutes and just go and do a part of that work.
○ You don't have to attack the whole project. Just work on it for that 15-minute
increment, or even maybe 5 minutes for that matter, whatever is convenient for
you in the moment. (Even a 5-minute increment can create momentum.)
○ The key is to use a timer. Set the timer for whatever time you want and work
until the timer stops.
This simple method allows you to actually work on something. You know that there is an end in
sight so you don't get overwhelmed. You're also much more likely to follow through when you
know that you just have to do 5 minutes or 15 minutes of work.
EXAMPLE: Doing your taxes
Let's say you need to do your taxes and you don’t like doing it because there's so much
information that you need to collect and do.
To attack your taxes using the Swiss cheese method, just say:
“I will work on my taxes for 15 minutes. It doesn't matter what I will do. I will just sit down in
front of a computer. I'll set my timer for 15 minutes and I'll start working on them. I will just
collect some documents...or I'll just sign in online and look at my previous years' returns or I will
collect some. Or I'll make some phone calls to get my documents from my trading account or
my investment accounts. Or I'll make a phone call to my attorney or my CPA.”
You can take that 15-minute chunk of time and just dedicate it completely to that one project
that you are putting off. What you'll find is you will have momentum which will allow you to
keep on doing that thing even after that 15 minutes has passed.
Now you have defeated the monster of procrastination on something big and ugly like your
taxes.
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3) The Right Kinds of Goals
Imagine you have a big deadline coming up. You are overwhelming yourself and not taking any
action because the project seems so big.
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Let’s say you need to write the marketing copy for one of the pieces of the project. Here’s how
you can approach it to stop procrastinating:
1.. S et a behavioral goal rather than an outcome-based goal.
● A behavioral goal is all about the action you take. In this case, the behavioral goal
is to write the marketing copy for 2 hours, no matter what.
● An outcome-based goal would be to finish the marketing copy by a certain date.
Take an action that is much easier to quantify for yourself, compared to saying, “I must finish
the marketing copy.” The key is to break the project down into very small chunks.
2. W
hat is the specific smallest next step you can take?
Initially you said you should write for 2 hours of the marketing copy. Now break it down to
maybe 15 minutes. That 15 minutes will create momentum and will allow you to do even more
work.
3. D ecide when and where you will do it.
In which office or room will you sit down to do it?
Once you have all these elements, you are on your way to defeating procrastination.
And then reward yourself. Make yourself feel proud for taking action because as you do that
again and again, you'll be conditioned to keep taking action. You will defeat procrastination
again and again.
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