How to Stop Procrastinating

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 mood sand 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.