vitabenes

With any job, there's a part of work that we enjoy and a part that we don't. This article and others on our site are meant to help people with the latter.

In the long term, we always advice people to look for work that is naturally engaging for them.

But in the meantime, a couple behavioral adjustments can turn "I hate doing this, I don't want to do this" into "Okay, let's do this one small bit".

The one with the article linked in the original post.

I think this has to with the unknowns of modern work.

In knowledge work, we need to:

1. Define the work

2. Do the work

Can't do what's not defined.

In general, the simple advice I give our clients is to take a piece of paper and a pen, and put all the ideas about the task out there. Take 5-15 minutes and try to define it.

Basecamp's Shape Up book is a lot about managing the unknowns.

I always recommend clients to get familiar with the task. A lot of the stress comes from facing the unknown (unknown codebase, report, process).

Your "study hat" is just that - you get familiar with the complex underlying mechanism and then much of the resistance disappears.

Get familiar, get started.

Procrastination is an escape from stress, unease, and discomfort.

Cleaning provides that escape. It gives you a boost of dopamine as well since you're accomplishing something. In addition to that, it's a visual activity - you immediately see progress. It's a super common procrastination activity.

That wasn't an all-inclusive list, but you're right, that's a big reason.

Yeah, I know what you're saying. This is more of a clinical disection of procrastination.

Many more of our blog posts and book chapters are more about the emotional side of things. Plus, we do coach people 1-on-1 in our program.

I used to be a pro, but blocking out distractions (the easiest, most "fun" activity) helped me do more.

I know you didn't ask for advice, but if I were to give you just 1 bit of it, it's to block distractions in the browser (or unplug wifi) and put your phone in another room.

Then you'd get bored for a while, and then you'd take the easy work-related actions despite not being motivated.

Yes, Pychil's work is incorporated in our materials.

This is the recipe for procrastination (according to us):

1. Think about a task - "I have to do _____."

2. Have an automatic negative reaction

     2a. Negative thoughts - "I hate doing this,"...

     2b Negative feelings - Feeling stressed, afraid,...

3. Procrastinate - Do something else to feel better.

Procrastination is all about escaping negative emotions.

Something makes you feel bad, you do something else to feel better.

Feeling better (reduced discomfort) is the short-term reward engaging in procrastination.

That's why procrastination can become addictive and automatic)

Happy to articulate it for you!

Without a trigger (also called a prompt), there is no behavior. We need someone (ourselves, others) or something (alarm, calendar) to take action.

We often say to our clients that procrastination is a teacher, an indicator.

What does it indicate? Could be:

* you don't like a type of work * you don't have sufficient skills to match the task * it's not important enough for you * you don't believe you can do it ...

We teach them to ask themselves: why am I procrastinating?

Resolve often isn't the issue.

True.

I think that could fall under "improving ability" in the Fogg model.

Check out the browser extension on our site! That might help, if an article won't.

I used to check Twitter 100-150 times a day, but with the use of the extension, I got it under 20 times. Try the Focus Zones feature. Try it, let me know if it works. I'll give you 3 months of Pro features for free if you shoot me an email.

What about a tiny step today?

Not sure if this is a classic procrastination joke or a promise, but either way, please do :)

Awesome! Happy to help

It's a good point. We do easy things even though we're not motivated.

B J Fogg talks about motivation waves - motivation comes and goes like a wave. When you're riding high, Fogg recommends taking a hard action that will make future actions easier (register for a yoga class, go for a long run after months of not running).

When motivation is low, take the easiest step possible.

Over time, what we're familiar with (daily routines) become habitual and we don't need motivation.

Happy to help!

It's back up! Try again and see if it actually helps.

Sorry, it will be up in a moment!

Working on that error. Sorry about that.

Happy to!

I used to have Twitter (my main source of distraction) on my phone and iPad, now I don't have it on any device and it's helped tremendously.

On my computer, I block all distracting sites with the extension I built until noon, then I have 20 minutes for mostly Twitter, then all blocked until 4PM, another 20 min break, and then blocked until 8PM. 8PM-midnight, I do whatever I want. I've found this a fair agreement with myself that I have no reason to break. It created a rhythm for me.

So perhaps if a complete block is too big a stretch, you can give yourself a couple well-defined "fun breaks".

> Procrastination is actually my mind trying to tell me something that I’m not attuned enough to realise in the first place.

Yeah, procrastination is a teacher. There's a reason why you or I procrastinate. Sometimes it takes only a couple minutes to figure out.

Regarding the fear part, I find re-framing it to be useful.

Fearing failure? Well, if you haven't started yet, you're already failing. What will you learn, even if you fail?

Fearing endless work? Do you enjoy the process? If not, could you make it more enjoyable?

Fearing judgement or putting something imperfect into the world? 1) We're all imperfect. 2) You can create, try, and fail in private. You don't have to show your first bad attempt to anyone. You can work on it until it's good enough and then show it to someone else.

And about that "break it down" advice, yes it does help, but I prefer to think about it as clarifying.

Clarify the work, identify the unresolved issue, hazy details, decisions not made. What am I ignoring? What's unclear? What's giving me anxiety? Any of those questions help.

Hope that helps a bit.

And as you say in the article that you're looking for more tools for defeating procrastination, I feel obliged to point you to the collection of anti-procrastination tools I've built at deprocrastination.co.

Probably. One simple habit is just getting out of the bed and saying "Today is going to be a great day!"

I haven't read the book but I posted mainly because I found the behavior model useful.