How to stop procrastinating

machineslikeus.com

5 pointstoni3 comments

I believe this is the back-bone of the GTD philosophy. Figuring out exactly what your next action™ is can help you get started on it sooner.

Exactly. GTD gives a system of organisation, and says that each item on your "To Do" list must specifically be a concrete "Next Action". It's interesting to see this being supported(ish) by research.

It works for me.

> merely thinking about the task in more concrete, specific terms makes it feel like it should be completed sooner and thus reducing procrastination

It doesn't say how they drew that conclusion from the evidence, but it seems a bit of a leap to me.

I think it's because a specific concrete task has less unknown in it, and therefore is easier to do; easier to estimate how long it will take; easier to judge your performance; and easier to know when you have completed the task - for these reasons, it is less scary.

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