A Cunning Trick To Help Beat Procrastination
If I had $100 for every person I’ve heard say they work better the nearer they got to a deadline, I would probably have bought Bermuda by now.
Ok, maybe not Bermuda as I’m not sure it’s up for sale, but certainly a nice small island in the Caribbean.
The reality of the situation is (up to a point) almost everybody works better the closer they get to a deadline, it’s how our brains are wired up.
Note: If you want help with procrastination, you could check out Jami Gibson as she is a great procrastination coach.
The Flow State
I feel sure you are familiar with the flow state made famous by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, right?
Very briefly it is when you are performing at your optimal level.
Often, time seems to stand still, things seem to be incredibly easy and life is, quite frankly, a walk in the park where all the paths are downhill.
Some people think that stress is absent from flow, but nothing could be further from the truth, except maybe Putins claims that he had nothing to do with the murder of Boris Nemtsov.
What is actually happening, is your are experiencing just the right amount of stress to heighten all your senses, get blood flowing to your brain and improve your overall performance.
You need a certain amount of stress just to get out of bed in the morning and without it you simply cannot perform adequately.
Stress Is Not A Bad Thing
Stress in and of itself is not a bad thing, as long that is, we allow our body to recover properly.
When people procrastinate up to deadlines, by and large, it is because they are not stressed enough by the consequences of their inaction.
In other words the pain of not doing the work is not as intense as the pain of doing it.
Note: It can also be because they have tipped the other way and or way too stressed to work.
If you get too stressed, your senses actually start to shut down, you memory worsens and you turn into gibbering wreck incapable of even basic tasks.
As human beings we are terrible at predicting how we will feel about future events, especially if we push them to the back of our minds.
And that is what most people are doing when they are procrastinating. They are busying themselves with other stuff and using an avoidance strategy.
I have a Coach the Life Coach course starting on the 28th March and I haven’t even properly started the marketing process yet because of ‘stuff’ getting in the way.
However, I know if I do not start to act before the weekend my stress will start to amp up in the form of anxiety and force me to act, because at the moment I still have 4 open places and don’t want this to be the first course that doesn’t sell out.
Maybe I should implement the technique I’m about to teach you myself and get my head out of my ass!
To make this work we are going to trick your brain into thinking it’s more stressed than it is.
But don’t worry, our brains like to be tricked and we’re doing it to ourselves in some way shape or form all the time.
Beat Procrastination Now
Take 5 minutes out of your day and relax.
Then close your eyes and focus on what will happen if you do not do whatever it is you want/need to do.
Hear what you would hear and see what you would see if things go badly.
Then let the negative emotions arise that you know you will encounter close to a deadline.
The important thing here is not to go too far, we want your heart rate up a tad, a slight feeling of uneasiness accompanied by a desire to take action.
Because, and this is the key, that is EXACTLY what is happening when you are working like a whirling dervish up to a deadline.
It’s just that normally it’s happening at an unconscious level and largely out of your conscious control.
When you get a bit anxious about your inactivity, open your eyes and get the shit done.
Now go and try it, but please do not take it to the point where you feel like a drug smuggler being cavity searched, I don’t want you having a panic attack!
Image Courtesy of MTSOfan
Glad to know you too Yukie.
Procrastination is a tricky sucker to deal with because there can be so many different reasons people do it, but that can help some without doubt.
Hi Tim,
Yes your simple trick can work effectively indeed, since procrastinators think there will always be tomorrow – whereas in fact it’s not always the case. Time loves playing around and I think we all know that. Say that a university student aims to create a research paper that should be finished within a week. When he is working on it, unexpectedly his relatives come to his house and they want to be accompanied to go to a mall. Then unexpectedly there is a new task from university that should be submitted on the same date. Next, the deadlines of old projects are also suddenly put earlier. And still, suddenly he catches fever and therefore has to go to a doctor and get some rest.
If we are the student and all those things occur when we procrastinate, in the end we will feel worried and guilty. Then what is it we are going to blame? We may think we have planned earlier that we will get the paper done in one week, so that it’s not our mistake. But it is still the fact that we don’t finish it. Besides, if that happens because we are too confident about the future and thus we laze around, that means we are also at fault.
I have heard that people like procrastinating and finish their work just exactly before deadline, because they don’t want to bother themselves too quickly finishing something with too much remaining time. But we already know that time likes to play around, and in terms of getting important things done, more time left is always safer than less time left. This is where your mind trick does its job: it makes us focus on what bad things could happen if we run out of time, so we get stressed enough to start doing the task earlier instead of thinking there is still plenty of time. Thank you for your tips for life, and I hope you have a successful career as a tough coach. Glad to know you!
Nice! I like this trick! Thanks Tim!
Great explanation of the positive impact of stress Tim.
The things we habitually procrastinate about can be great diagnostic clues to our insecurities. If we start asking why we’re avoiding something, some interesting things come up.
Also once we identify what the fear is based on, we often find it’s just old conditioning.
Agree 100%, not many fears are ‘real’ but just old conditioning!
Some great tips for getting things done here! Sounds a lot like what my old gym teacher used to teach us about stress, that it’s all about finding your peak level of stress at which you perform the best!
I used to apply this technique in university, where I would put up imaginary deadlines to increase my stress levels and get things done.
Nice post!
It sounds like you already had it nailed Mathias, nice one!
Great post Tim!
I chuckled out loud at the Putin joke.
For me as a high stress type A person taking the time to relax and recharge is super important and helps with being able to plan my week and
manage emotions.
Best,
JL
Some restrictive language there mate!
Vi>”For me as a high stress type A person”
It seems you’re attaching stress to your identity. It will make it much harder to manage if you do.
Great insight here! I recently got over a creative block, and procrastinating was a big problem at the time. It’s so much more satisfying getting past that than any sort of temporary pleasure that procrastinating brings. Thanks for sharing!
Yep it sure is!
I am definitely going to try this!
As for this (which really did make me LOL), “Now go and try it, but please do not take it to the point where you feel like a drug smuggler being cavity searched, I don’t want you having a panic attack!” – are you talking from experience here? ;)
Think opening scene in Midnight Express!
Ha! This is very true. In fact, my step mother used to use this to her advantage, waiting until Christmas Eve to go Christmas shopping, claiming it gave her “creative anxiety”. If she did it any sooner, she’d overthink everyone’s gift. But if you have to do it right now, you just buy it and move to the next.
Great tip. Thanks for sharing.
-Tara
http://absolutelytara.com
Until she can’t get what she wanted and then it can tip over into blind panic!