Procrastination and humans - a love story for the ages!

bymadrempetic

93 followers

4 years ago

We have all been there. You have been putting off doing something for a few months now, you have 4 other things to do that are kind of a pain in the ass, if you don't do it there will be clear consequences - and you take a nap! And it's the nap of doom and you know you shouldn't do it but due to the chaos in your head, you have to take it. So the nap turns into 3 hours of watching Netflix or Youtube and then you say to yourself: "There is always tomorrow". And then repeat!

I am writing this blog post because this is me. I have a huge problem with procrastination and I thought that writing down advice to everyone else could help me with my struggle.

There is nothing wrong with you, the far majority of people are prone to procrastinating. If you don't believe me just look at how many jokes there are targeting procrastination. And we know that the basics of comedy are to tackle the relatable things we humans have. Example: Procrastination is a totally good thing. You always have something to do tomorrow, plus nothing you have to do today.

We humans don't have a good understanding of why we procrastinate, but we think it has something to do with habits and repetition. Think about it, you only procrastinate because you get all the work done anyway, and it doesn't seem to make a difference if you do it 3 days before the deadline or just catch it. It's all the same to you, so you created a habit of doing things last minute and procrastinating until you HAVE to do it. So if you created a habit you can also destroy it right? YES!

The first thing you should do is write down everything you have to do! Everything. Just the act of doing so will help you get a clearer head. When you write down the things you have to do, they become manageable and real. They are no longer abstractions in your head that seem both very easily doable and the hardest thing there is to do ever. They become tasks, that can be done with the right approach and time management.

When you know what you have to do, you have to know when you will do it. So take out your phone and plan it out. If you have to write a blog post, for example, you have to know approximately how much time this will take you. And here is an important step: don't overwork yourself. If you usually write a blog post in 2 - 3 hours don't set yourself up for failure and schedule only 1.5 hours for it. Be realistic and give yourself 3 or even 4 hours to do it right. And if you finish early that is way better then finishing late and destroying your entire schedule for the day. Another benefit of finishing early is, that you can actually check for quality and not just submit the first draft every time.

Scheduling has to become a habit. Every time you think of something you have to do, write it down in your notes (or where ever you want) and at the end of the day take 10 minutes and schedule your tasks into a calendar. And whenever you make an appointment or agree for a coffee with a friend, you schedule it in your calendar. When you start doing this, your life and head will become much more organized.

These are the behaviors that would be ideal. But if it was this simple, no one would ever procrastinate and this blog post wouldn't exist. So how to break and make a habit? Scientist says that it takes about 21 days of repetition on average, for an ordinary person to create a habit. After 21 days of let's say exercising, the voice in the back of your head that tells you that working out is stupid, shuts up. But these 21 days are hell, maybe you do it for 10 days and then 1 day you don't and the whole thing collapses.

So the key is to stay motivated for at least 21 days, and then it gets easier. But how to make this work? Make a separate physical calendar of the habit you want to adopt, but only for 1 habit at a time. So if you want to start working out, have a cleaner room, stop smoking... you can't tackle all of the bad habits at once, but can do it one at a time. So if you have let's say 10 bad habits you would need 210 days to destroy all of them and create new ones. This is not a bad deal, only 7 months and your life can be a lot better? It's worth a try.

Write down all of your bad habits. The minor ones, the big ones, the middle ones, all of them. When you see them on a piece of paper, you will see yourself way better than you did before. You will see that the habits are destroying you and it will be easier to stay motivated. Take your list of bad habits and place them in a spot you see every day, especially when you wake up. Then decide on 1 habit you want to get rid of and make a plan on how you will stop doing this. And what is even more important, decide how you will replace the habit. Do this so you when the urge to do the bad habit kicks in, you don't have to think about what to do, you just do the new, good habit.

An example: I watch too much basketball entertainment, I like Luka Dončič and I watch everything people say about him. This takes about an hour of my day every day, so to stop doing this, I have to create an activity I enjoy just as much, but is productive. So I could start doing a podcast. Whenever I want to watch a Luka dončič video, I will pick up my phone, press on record audio and start talking about him or anything else I want. This will be the first habit that I tackle. I will however still watch all of his games or highlights on Youtube.

There will be a part two to this blog post, when I share if I was succesfull or not, so stay tuned :)