Habit, not Will Power, beats Procrastination

Science-based Tips and Tricks to overpower procrastination from a procrastinator.

I’ve been struggling with procrastination for a long time. I’m sure, you, too, must have struggled with it. In fact, procrastination is a pandemic that has afflicted humans for eternity.

Photo by Pedro da Silva on Unsplash

Fortunately, however, psychologists have been studying procrastination for long; hence, they have actionable tips and tricks to manage it. In this post, you’ll find out not only the insights from the research papers, popular books, and online courses but also how it has worked for me.

A tale of two concepts before we get started: Will Power and Belief.

Will Power:

Don’t ever berate your will power for procrastination. Procrastination, like a fever, is a physiological problem not just psychological.

Do you berate your will power for not cooling down a fever?

We procrastinate because we find a task hard and we don’t like it. Not liking the task triggers the pain center of the brain. We feel pain, hence our mind wanders towards the pleasure center of the brain, and we end up browsing social media for short term pleasure. Ironically, procrastination gets reinforced because, as a result of it, we reward ourselves with social media; a vicious cycle.

You don’t need will power to manage procrastination, but you need to have a belief in science.

Belief:

Having a belief that you can beat it is like winning half the battle.

As a smoker, I'd always remark I can quit anytime I wanted. Friends would observe that's how all addicts talked. When it came to quitting smoking, I quit it without using nicotine bars. It was the belief that helped me come out of the addiction. My simple trick was not hanging out with smokers while I was trying to quit. It’s called designing your environment and it is helpful for procrastination as well. We’ll get into it in the following paragraphs.

If you believe in science, you should find it easy to believe that you can beat procrastination. Science tells us that it can be beaten. Millions have beaten it, so you can too.

On to the tips and tricks:

1. Chunking: You move a mountain one stone at a time. You procrastinate a task because it is a mountain to your mind. So, break the task into manageable sub-tasks that you have time and skills to tackle. You may have an aspiration to build Rome, but you cannot build it in a month. The desire to build Rome would wear you down and you'll procrastinate. The better strategy is to break up the tasks and start tackling subtasks every day; the amount of work you’ll achieve in a year will surprise you. Think big, start small.
2. Hail A Helpful Zombies: You need a helpful Zombies; you need to feed it, nourish it, and make it stronger. Zombies are nothing but a brain-dead avatar of us. Habits make us zombies, as we end up doing tasks without thinking about them. Do you think the mechanics of biking while biking? Remember how it was when you were learning to bike. In the morning, do you think before switching on your phone and browsing Facebook? It is a bad zombie (habit), but we can rely on our zombie self to do good things. Routines make us zombie, and we develop a habit and do the task in semi-aware mode. Routine and habit are our friends. Start small, but do the small task every day.
3. Process over Product: Focus on routine over the outcome. Focus on process over product. The task is hard, and that’s why your brain doesn’t like it and you procrastinate. You respond by not worrying about the task but the routine. Follow a routine, and show up every day. Your goal is to sit for half an hour and do the work without worrying about the outcome. Don’t let the pressure of a finished product wear you down, start loving and celebrating the process. Start small, do the small task every day, and celebrate the routine.
4. Focused work in Short Bursts: Remember what you are doing is not easy, so don’t challenge yourself with a long routine. Do the task in a short burst, 30 min to one hour. Powerful, uninterrupted, focused and energized. Earlier, when I was trying to write for an hour, I was procrastinating. Coming to my desk for an hour of intense work would give me shivers. The current 30 min burst seems to be working fine with me. Once I develop a habit for 30 min, I’ll stretch and try out a 1-hour routine. Start small, do the small task every day, and celebrate the routine, but never overstretch.
5. Deliberately Design your Environment: Design your environment such that it makes it easier for you to do a ‘good’ task. Facebook notification is a cue to get you back to Facebook; the big TV screen in your living room reminds you of the show on Netflix. Design, create and manage cues that lead you to do the task you need to do. If you want to read, have a bookshelf, dump kindle and get a hard copy of the books you want to read. It’ll remind you that you need to read. Have a fixed place where you do your writing and follow a set of rituals, like cleaning up your desk, dusting off the chair, and having a cup of coffee. You want to trick your mind so that it starts believing that after these rituals it has to help you in writing.

Summary:

In conclusion, will power will not help you manage procrastination because it can’t. You need to rely on routines to get it done. Please work in a short burst to get things done, and design your environment in a way that makes it convenient for you to follow the routine.

Reference:

Barbara Oakley: Learning How to Learn

Deep Work — Cal Newport