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The very first step in overcoming this pernicious disease, in the name of procrastination is gaining more awareness of what triggers such behavior in us. For many, it is triggered by the rise of certain thoughts that arise to justify the delaying of action. While for others like me it arises from the fear of never getting something done in the most perfect way.
Something we all procrastinators are good at is making excuses, this has been my problem of late, I can feel myself slipping into this loop of excuses which justify the lack of me taking action. It's not that I want but my mind just keeps coming up with them, and at a rate that I don't really like.
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One thing which I think is crucial is for anyone struggling with this, is to spend some time getting familiar with one's trigger thoughts, as many of us justify procrastination without even realizing that we are doing, and before we know it, a whole day is wasted. The habit being edged deep into one's subconscious mind.
Awareness of what the thought triggers are for anyone will go a long way in assisting one deal with procrastination since one is in a better position, where breaking the habit merely requires a little bit of willpower to just get started at whatever the task is.
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But there are those of us who don't have the willpower to just get started, a friend of mine facing this issue where he tells me it is not that he doesn't want to get things done, it's just that he thinks he doesn't have the energy in him to get started. For people like him, following the insights espoused by Timothy Pychyl in his publication Solving the Procrastination Puzzle can help one get more in control, rather than feeling helpless and powerless at all the times. As he writes:
You think you are not able to get started, probably because you are focused on your feelings (which are negative), and you are thinking about the whole task, about “getting it done” as opposed to “getting started.” The trick is to find something that you can get started on.
Timothy Pychyl
Another technique is that which was posited by Michael Epstein in his book Three Minute Therapy which he calls The Three Minute Procrastination Buster. His technique has its roots in the concept of Inertia, in physics, i.e. the tendency of an object to remain in its state of motion unless acted upon by external forces.
This illustrates the basic rationale of most anti-procrastination techniques: make inertia work FOR you. We all, in varying degrees, have a tendency to inertia; we all find it easier to continue what we’re doing than to change gears and start doing something different. But once we have started doing that different thing, inertia begins to work in favor of sticking to it. . . This principle can be taken to its ultimate in the Three Minute Procrastination Buster. In this technique, you simply decide that you will spend three minutes working on something, even though three minutes seems not worth doing. Suppose that you have been putting off an unpleasant chore for some time. Then you decide to give it three minutes.
Michael Epstein
According to Epstein, making a decision to do something for at least three minutes requires very little willpower and is something we all can despite how advanced our habit of procrastination. As he and many others have noted, once one gets started, one is likely to continue with the task for more time than one actually anticipated in the beginning.
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The fact that attitude often follows behavior is another reason why "the just getting started" technique is effective. Thinking about the need to complete a whole task just leads to panic attacks and a lot of anxiety as I have come to witness. But if one just focuses on the getting started part rather than the entire task and one focuses on the process, one's attitude changes and the initial small accomplishments often turn to provide the needed motivation to tackle more difficult things.
In a way, it may seem counterintuitive, but often we do not need to wait until we are motivated to act, but rather motivation will follow action, as Oliver Bukerman explains in his book The Antidote:
…who says you need to wait until you ‘feel like’ doing something in order to start doing it? The problem, from this perspective, isn’t that you don’t feel motivated; it’s that you imagine you need to feel motivated. If you can regard your thoughts and emotions about whatever you’re procrastinating on as passing weather, you’ll realize that your reluctance about working isn’t something that needs to be eradicated, or transformed into positivity. You can coexist with it. You can note the procrastinatory feelings, and act anyway.
Oliver Bukerman
It is illuminating to note, here, how the daily rituals and working routines of prolific authors and artists – people who really do get a lot done – very rarely include techniques for ‘getting motivated’ or ‘feeling inspired’. Quite the opposite: they tend to emphasize the mechanics of the working process, focusing not on generating the right mood, but on accomplishing certain physical actions, regardless of mood.
Oliver Bukerman
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On a final note, it is worth noting that when breaking the habit of procrastination, it is helpful to reinforce new behaviors with rewards. As many have noted, rewards play a crucial role in the formation of both good and bad habits.
It is okay to congratulate oneself for a task completed with say a "guilty pleasure," whatever it may be. This helps reinforce the new productive behavior one is trying to develop in place of procrastination.
So there we go HIVERS, I hope anyone struggling with this situation gets some insights from the above piece on how to overcome the problem.
I will see you people in the next update.
Peace 👋✌