Stop Procrastinating
Summary & Checklist
- Nils Salzgeber
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Chapter 1: Know Thy Enemy — How Procrastination
Works and Why You Can’t Stop
Procrastination happens because there are two different personalities
within you: 1) the rational self and 2) the monkey self.
The rational self wants to wake up early, exercise regularly, and finish
projects in a timely manner. The monkey self only wants immediate
gratification – it runs away from what feels bad and toward what feels good.
Procrastination occurs when the monkey self wins over the rational self.
You (rational self) want to study for an upcoming exam, but the monkey
urges you to watch TV instead. When you give in to watching TV, that’s
procrastination. When you resist the urge, that’s an act of willpower.
At its core, procrastination always comes down to negative emotions.
Certain tasks make us feel bad, which leads to the monkey urging us to run
away from the task and toward something that feels better. It’s always
negative emotions that get in our way – when we feel anxious,
overwhelmed, sad, or angry (for whatever reason!)… that’s when we are
likely to procrastinate.
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Chapter 2: Awareness — The First Step Toward
Change and Why You’re Ahead of 99 Percent of Your
Fellow Procrastinators
Successful change always starts with awareness. If you’re not aware of
what’s going wrong in your life, how are you going to fix it? The more
awareness you develop regarding your procrastination tendencies, the
faster you’ll change for the better.
Keep a Procrastination Log: Keep a log in which you keep track of
avoided activities, explanations for what happened, and how you plan to
overcome the issue next time. The record of your current behavior helps
you see recurring patterns, learn from mistakes, and prepare for the
future.
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Chapter 3: The Paradox of Getting Started — Why the
Problem Is the Cure
Learning ways to get started on tasks is a massive step toward overcoming
procrastination. By definition, if you can’t get yourself to begin a task, you
procrastinate. If you manage to get started, you stop procrastination dead
in its tracks. You also realize that the task isn’t as bad as you thought, start
feeling better about yourself, and create powerful momentum because
you’re making progress.
Focus on the next step, not the next thousand steps. Use your
willpower to move your attention away from the overwhelming aspects of
a project and narrow it down to the next actionable task you can get
started on.
Lower your perfectionistic standards. Decrease your initial resistance
to getting started by lowering your standards. For example, aim to
meditate for one minute, not 20 minutes.
Follow the two-minute rule. If a task takes less than two minutes to
complete, do it immediately.
Set an implementation intention. Use the formula, “If situation X
arises, then I will perform response Y.” A common example: “If I get
home after work, then I’ll immediately start studying for my upcoming
math exam.”
Focus on the process, not the outcome. Set a timer for 20 to 30
minutes and focus on the process of working on a dreaded task for that
predetermined amount of time.
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Chapter 4: What Productivity Gurus Won’t Tell You
About Procrastination — Why Time Management Is
Only Part of the Solution
While time management isn’t a complete solution to procrastination, it’s still
a very helpful tool and a necessary foundation to build upon.
Schedule, schedule, schedule. What gets scheduled gets done. Get in
the habit of moving tasks from your to-do list to your calendar. When
exactly are you going to get something done? (If you don’t currently use
a calendar, I highly suggest starting now.)
Start your day on fire. Be as disciplined and productive in the early
morning as you possibly can be. No time-wasting. No dillydallying. No
goofing off. Follow your plan — whether you feel like it or not! Create
that all-important momentum and remember: Once you’re in action
mode, you’ll tend to stay in it all day long.
Plan your day the night before. Get in the habit of creating a step-by-
step outline for the next day (at least for the first few hours). You should
be able to go through the early morning hours without having to think
much.
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Chapter 5: The Magic of a Simple Plan — How to
Program Your Unconscious Mind to Automatically
Procrastinate Less
Implementation intentions are a great strategy for tweaking your own
behavior. These simple if-then plans literally program your unconscious
mind and guide you to automatically act in desirable, procrastination-
disabling ways.
Create implementation intentions: Look at your own life and you will
find endless opportunities to use if-then plans. Once you have
something in mind, use the following formula to program your behavior:
“If ______ happens, then I will do ________.”
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Chapter 6: Carrots & Sticks — They May Be Old
School… But They Work!
The monkey in your brain operates on the simple principle of approaching
what feels good (the carrot) and avoiding what feels bad (the stick). We can
use this knowledge to our advantage by making desirable activities more
attractive while making distractions and time-wasters less attractive. The
result? Less procrastination.
Promise Yourself a Reward: Attaching rewards to aversive tasks
makes them more attractive for the monkey. In turn, you’ll experience
less resistance toward the task. As an example, you can reward yourself
with a delicious protein smoothie after a hard workout session.
Temptation Bundling: Adding an enticing temptation to an aversive
task allows you to make the task more appealing to the monkey. As a
result, you’ll feel less resistant toward the task. A common example is to
exercise while listening to your favorite podcast.
Make Procrastination Pay: You can use so-called commitment
contracts to associate massive pain with procrastinating on a specific
task. This will increase your motivation and can all but guarantee you’ll
get the dreaded task done. An example could be giving your friend $500
and only getting it back if you show up at his door to exercise on time. If
you don’t show up (you procrastinate), you lose the money.
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Chapter 7: Why Your Granny Doesn’t Procrastinate —
The Alarming Link Between Technology, Distractions,
and Procrastination
Distractions such as Facebook, TV programs, or video games are major
enablers of procrastination. Research shows that the more enticing the
distractions are, the more we procrastinate. Considering how attractive
(downright addictive!) modern distractions are, it’s no wonder so many of
us are struggling with procrastination.
Eliminate or Complicate: One problem with modern distractions is that
they are too easily accessible. If we want to procrastinate less, we need
to eliminate or complicate their access. We can do that by blocking
distracting websites, deleting distracting apps on our smartphones,
uninstalling computer games, or selling our game consoles.
Mold Your Environment: Everything in our environment has an
unconscious impact on us. Some things trigger us to procrastinate, while
others trigger us to work. We want to remove anything that could trigger
procrastination from our environment and fill it instead with things that
could trigger better productivity. Some common examples we’ve
discussed are eliminating bookmarks, cleaning up your desktop, putting
your phone in airplane mode, getting rid of notifications, and decluttering
your work and living space.
Make Distractions Pay: By setting up commitment contracts (e.g., “I’ll
pay $500 every time I check Instagram before finishing my
dissertation”), you make distractions a lot less attractive. In fact, you can
make them so unappealing that not even the monkey wants anything to
do with them.
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Chapter 8: The Power of Nice — Why Self-Criticism
Won’t Get You Anywhere and What to Do Instead
Research clearly shows that self-criticism leads to more procrastination
while self-compassion leads to less procrastination. To overcome
procrastination, stop unfairly criticizing yourself and instead treat yourself
with warmth, love, kindness, and understanding.
Forgive Yourself: Each act of procrastination can be used to practice
forgiveness and self-compassion. Next time you fall short of your lofty
aspirations and are about to beat yourself up, stop and remember what
we talked about here. Instead of giving yourself a mental beating, forgive
yourself as best you can. Remember, it’s natural to procrastinate from
time to time. It’s okay. We all do it. Human life is hard. It’s okay to feel
bad, guilty, sad, or whatever. That’s also natural. Treat yourself like you
would treat a good friend and resolve to do better next time.
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Chapter 9: The Art of Emotion Surfing — How to Do
What Needs to Get Done… No Matter What.
We procrastinate because we don’t feel like it. We let negative emotions
get in the way and then follow our monkey’s pull toward doing something
that feels better. Overcoming procrastination is about realizing that we’re
not at the mercy of our thoughts and emotions. It’s about realizing that we
can do the right thing whether we feel like it or not. It’s about learning to do
the right thing no matter what.
Surf Your Emotions: Next time you experience negative emotions and
feel the urge to run toward immediate gratification, stop and slow down.
Don’t do anything. For 30-60 seconds, just stay put and observe your
own thoughts and emotions. Just watch what’s happening. Just feel the
sensations in your body. Let the urge ride itself out. After about a minute
or so, you’ll find that the urge has lost much of his power. You’re able to
overcome those negative emotions and get started on the task.
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Chapter 10: The Science of Willpower — Why It’s the
Secret to Overcoming Procrastination and Living a
Healthy, Happy, and Successful Life
Procrastination can be described as a self-control failure. If you want to do
one thing, but end up doing something else, you simply lacked the
necessary willpower to resist the allure of immediate gratification. In other
words, you failed to control the self — you failed to control your own
behavior. The good news is that willpower is subject to change. Even
better, every improvement in willpower translates directly into an
improvement with procrastination.
The tactics
Optimize your health and energy levels: Willpower is surprisingly
physical and uses up the same energy we use for breathing, exercising,
talking, moving around, etc. If your health sucks, you’ll lack the energy
required for willpower and you’ll fail to overcome procrastination. The
more energy you have, the more willpower you have, and the better you
are at resisting the monkey’s constant pulls toward immediate
gratification. I suggest optimizing your nutrition, exercise, sleep, and
other health habits.
Simplify your life: Every decision you make burns up a little bit of
willpower — willpower that could be used to battle procrastination. By
simplifying your life, you reduce the amount of decisions you have to
make every day. Start by minimizing your wardrobe, planning your days
the night before, and cycling through the same healthy meals over and
over again.
Meditate: Meditation has been shown to be one of the best strategies to
improve willpower and grow the correlating brain structures. I suggest
starting a daily mindfulness meditation habit with the use of the
Headspace app.
Exercise: Regular exercise is another powerful self-control booster. You
don’t even need to go to the gym — anything from gardening to playing
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with kids or pets counts! As a general guideline, you want to exercise
intensively a couple of times per week and move at a low pace
throughout the day as much as possible.
Grow your self-compassion: Self-compassion is one of my best kept
secrets. It helps me cope with procrastination, makes me happier,
relieves a lot of guilt, and has even been shown to boost willpower.
From now on, resolve to treat yourself with understanding, care, and
respect. Leave the constant criticism and harsh judgments behind. They
only make things worse.
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