Procrastination feels heavy.
But what if we could turn combating procrastination into a fun game?
Lately, when I catch myself avoiding a task, I’ll play a little game to see if I can get myself to move in the right direction.
I’ve discovered that it’s best to approach any task with a curious and playful mindset. If you take yourself too seriously, all the joy and fun can get stripped from the process.
Often, when I play this game, I surprise myself because the strategy works! I’ll be off and running with a task I procrastinated on for days.
But sometimes a strategy won’t work. That’s okay. When this happens, I usually take a little break before trying another approach.
I don’t claim to be a grandmaster at playing the game of combating procrastination. But these days, I can catch myself when procrastinating, notice the warning signs, and get moving in the right direction.
In this blog, I share how you can combat procrastination in a fun and playful way to fulfil your intentions and accomplish your goals.
Are you ready to play?
Let’s begin!
If you want to play this game of combating procrastination, you first need to understand what procrastination is and the rules of the game.
I recommend you play this game on your own so you’re not competing against anyone else. There’s no first or second place, no runners-up, and no one wins a trophy.
You can play with others, but it’s a collaborative game where you cheer each other on and gently coach each other into action.
It’s also a game that never ends because the work never ends. You are constantly learning and growing.
In her book ‘Procrastination: What it is, why it’s a problem and what you can do about it’ Dr Fuschia Sirois defines procrastination as:
“ . . . a common self regulation problem involving the unnecessary and voluntary delay in the start or completion of important intended tasks despite the recognition that this delay may have negative consequences.”
In other words, procrastination is:
Delaying a task + you know you are causing your Future Self pain and suffering.
There are some simple rules you need to understand to combat procrastination. Once you cement these rules in your brain, life becomes easier. Instead of experiencing constant resistance, you discover ease and flow.
Difficult work tends to bring up unpleasant emotions, such as boredom, stress, anxiety, fear, and frustration.
Most of us don’t like experiencing these feelings, so to repair our mood, we procrastinate. We avoid work and engage in easier, more fun tasks (e.g., scrolling through social media).
At the heart of combating procrastination is allowing yourself to sit with unpleasant feelings and push past them. Resist the urge to run to your devices. If you can do this, that’s 80% of the battle.
Pushing through the discomfort and making a start is a significant milestone worth celebrating.
Often, we wait for the perfect time to start a task. But it’s an illusion that there is a perfect time.
The perfect time is right now, amid the messiness and chaos of life.
“But I’m not feeling motivated!” I hear you say.
That’s okay. Make a start regardless of how you feel because here’s the part most people don’t understand:
Motivation follows action
In other words, you have to get moving for motivation to show up.
There are many great strategies and tools that can help you get started with a task, even when your motivation levels are low.
Once you have a selection of strategies and tools and you’ve practised using them a few times, you will feel more confident in your ability to combat procrastination.
Here are a few of my favourite strategies and tools for getting started with my work:
Fear is a significant driver of procrastination: fear that you won’t be able to do it, fear of failure, and fear of the unknown.
When you move your body, you decrease fear and anxiety. Movement can also help to calm and focus your mind and boost positive emotions.
This is why I start my day with a 20-30 minute run on my treadmill. It bathes my brain in feel-good chemicals, makes me feel stronger, and prepares me for the challenging work I’m about to face.
When a task feels big and overwhelming, it’s easy to procrastinate. But can you do 10 minutes on the task?
When I set a timer for 10 minutes, my brain thinks, “I can do 10 minutes. Easy!”
My brain then knows the task (and the unpleasant feelings) won’t last forever. The worst-case scenario is I experience 10 minutes of mild to moderate discomfort. When the timer goes off, I have a way out. I can do something else.
But what usually happens is after 10 minutes, I realise the task isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The motivation has kicked in, and I’m on a roll.
When struggling to write my PhD, I attended a workshop led by an academic coach. She encouraged me to “Write crap” (her words, not mine).
This helped me to get over the perfection hump and make a start.
Most (if not all) great works started as rough drafts. The problem is we don’t see those rough early versions. We only see the polished final product. This messes with our minds and can lead to perfectionist tendencies kicking in.
Embrace the first messy draft. Celebrate it! You have to do it to get to the good stuff.
In the book ‘Everything in its Place’, Dan Charnas recommends the ‘Slow-but-don’t-stop’ technique for doing things you don’t want to do.
Here’s how it works:
If you’re feeling resistance towards a task, start doing it, but move very slowly. Breathe into the discomfort. Take your time.
Charnas writes that as you use this technique:
“You’ll still hate it [the task] but your task has become a moving meditation or like a game.”
For example, I used this strategy on the weekend to sort my laundry. The first step was to pick up the basket full of clothes and place it on my bed. Then, I picked up one item at a time and put them into piles (e.g., socks, activewear, and undies). I then selected a pile of items (socks) and dealt with one item at a time.
I’d usually rush to fold my clothes and feel slightly annoyed by the whole process (“Ugh, what a chore!”), but this time, it felt different. It felt like a meditation. I felt calm and grounded as I folded my socks.
The beauty of this technique is that the work will still get done, but as Charnas points out, you don’t give up control. You still have forward momentum.
As the Mexican proverb goes:
“An ant on the move does more than a dozing ox.”
Are there things in your workspace that distract you? Is there anything that reminds you of more fun stuff you could be doing (e.g., a video game console or your phone)?
Please get rid of those things or make them harder to access.
My phone is my biggest distraction. This is why I keep it away from my body in another room whenever I need to do focused work.
I’m currently experimenting with Mel Robbin’s 5-Second Rule. The 5-Second Rule is simple:
The moment you have the instinct to do a task before your brain can come up with an excuse not to do it, you count backwards ‘5 . . . 4 . . . 3 . . . 2 . . . 1!’ and you do it.
In her book ‘The 5 Second Rule’ Robbins explains the psychology underpinning the strategy. She writes:
“The counting distracts you from your excuses and focuses your mind on moving in a new direction. When you physically move instead of stopping to think, your physiology changes and your mind falls in line . . . the Rule is (in the language of habit research) a “starting ritual” that activates the prefrontal cortex, helping to change your behavior.”
The ultimate way to combat procrastination is to create a habit or a ritual. You need something that signals to your brain it’s time to engage in a particular behaviour.
With habits, you don’t have to stop and think, “What do I need to do now?”. Habits are automatic. Your brain knows exactly what it needs to do, and you do it.
For example, I have a habit of running on my treadmill before I launch into my day. My brain knows that after I put on my gym clothes and shoes, I turn on my treadmill and hit the speed button to start my warm-up.
I carry these behaviours out even when I’m not in the mood to run. That’s the power of habits.
Then, I suggest you cut yourself some slack.
Forgive yourself for procrastinating, pick a strategy, and get moving.
Most of us don’t do this, though.
We bag ourselves out in an attempt to motivate ourselves. The problem is this rarely works.
Dr Sirois says that intense self-criticism leads to negative thoughts, which lead to negative feelings. We end up feeling demotivated, which causes us to procrastinate even more!
You can stop the vicious cycle of procrastination by practising being kind to yourself.
If you follow these simple rules and be playful with experimenting with these strategies, you can get a better handle on procrastination.
Like anything in life, the key is practice. The more you practice allowing yourself to feel the unpleasant emotions instead of running from them, the better you’ll do. The more times you practice a strategy, the more natural it will feel and the sooner it will become a habit.
One foot in front of the other. You can do this.
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All of us have had the experience of watching videos instead of writing an essay. We can all relate to telling ourselves, “I’ll do it tomorrow”.
The problem is our brains are wired for comfort. We’ll try to do everything we can to avoid experiencing pain and discomfort. But through our avoidance behaviour, we ultimately create more pain and suffering for our Future Selves.
You can avoid working on a project, but eventually your Future Self will have to pay the price.
As Dr Benjamin Hardy states in his book Be Your Future Self Now:
“The more you put your Future Self in debt in terms of health, learning, finances, and time, the more painful and costly will be the eventual toll. There will be a lot of interest to pay if you continually accrue debt.”
This is why it really helps to cultivate habits and develop systems that help you get started with your work early (well before the deadline).
Over the last few months, I’ve come across several novel and effective ways people are combatting procrastination around the world. I write about each of these below.
The Manuscript Writing Café is a place where writers go to avoid distractions and meet their writing deadlines.
This is a disciplined environment where the owner Takuya Kawai won’t tolerate socialising over drinks. As Kawai states in a social media post:
“The Manuscript Writing Cafe only allows in people who have a writing deadline to face! It’s in order to maintain a level of focus and tense atmosphere at the cafe! Thank you for your understanding.”
In order for this café to run smoothly, Kawai has established a set of rules writers must follow upon entering.
Here’s how it works:
When you enter the café, you commit to a specific goal (how many words you want to write) and a time you plan on finishing. You write this down on a goal card.
You then select from three levels of progress checks:
1) Mild: You get a progress check at the time of payment
2) Normal: You get a progress check every hour
3) Hard: Staff frequently stand behind you and watch you working.
You can’t leave the café until you finish your writing goal.
Once you complete your writing goal, your goal card is stamped with a cute Japanese stamp and displayed on the wall with all the other completed goals.
Let’s unpack the psychology of how this clever café works . . .
Besides the fact you are working in a focus friendly environment away from all your usual distractions, it helps that you are in the company of other people who are also working towards clear goals.
When a staff member stands over your shoulder, you don’t want them to see you scrolling through social media or checking your email. You want them to look at you and think, “Oh wow! This person is super focused and on a roll. Look at them go!”
If you go to this café enough times and achieve a feeling of success after completing each writing goal, your identity will begin to shift. Instead of seeing yourself as someone who procrastinates, you start to see yourself as the sort of person who just gets on with doing the work.
It also costs money to be there. It is 130 yen ($1.30 AUD) for the first 30 minutes and then it increases to 300 yen ($3 AUD) per hour. Being charged a fee provides incentive to just get on with doing your work (procrastination equals parting with your hard earned money).
The owner insists his café is a supportive environment and his tactics are not heavy handed. He states:
“As a result, what they [the writers] thought would take a day was actually completed in three hours, or tasks that usually take three hours were done in one.”
You may not have an anti-procrastination café in your neighbourhood, but there’s nothing to stop you from setting up your own writing café experience and applying the same or similar rules.
This is what a group of PhD students and I did to help us write our theses (you can read more about this here).
This event is run by a number of universities around the world. Students are encouraged to come along with a work project they have been avoiding.
Educators, mental health nurses, therapy dogs, librarians, and academic coaches are on standby, ready to help students tackle their specific procrastination issues.
For instance, if a student is procrastinating with writing an essay because they don’t know how to write an academic essay, they can get help from an academic coach.
If a student is procrastinating because they get easily distracted, they can receive coaching on various strategies, such as the Pomodoro Technique, that will help them to deal with distractions and focus their mind.
When it comes to procrastination, there is no one size fits all approach. Nights Against Procrastination are popular and effective because they offer students a smorgasbord of different strategies and solutions to combat procrastination.
The Beeminder app is a commitment device/goal setting app that helps you stay on track with achieving your goals. Here’s how it works:
You commit to a goal (e.g., Read 70 pages per week). You set a daily target (e.g., 10 pages per day). If you get derailed from achieving your goal, you get stung with a charge from your credit card (you pledge the particular amount).
It sounds harsh but this app is your accountability buddy. There’s a real consequence associated with not engaging in the behaviour. This can give you the extra motivational boost you need to make a start.
The great thing about this app is it integrates with other apps and programs (e.g., Fitbit, Garmin, Duolingo, and RescueTime). Once you set up these integrations it’s a lot harder for you to weasel out of your goals. The data gets automatically imported into the Beeminder app and the data speaks for itself. You either achieved your daily goal or you didn’t.
If you’re going to use this app, you need to be really clear about your goals. And you need to be serious about achieving them because let’s face it, losing money hurts.
Cave Days are online focused work sprint sessions that take place on Zoom. You’re instructed to leave your camera on, put your phone away, close any unnecessary tabs, and work for 45 – 52 minutes. Before your work sprint session, you set a goal for what you want to accomplish.
These work sessions are facilitated by a ‘Trained Cave Guide’. The Cave Guide doesn’t tell you the exact time the session will go for because they don’t want you to be watching the clock the entire time. At the end of each work session, your Cave Guide will facilitate short break activities.
If you want to check this out, you can register for a free 7 day trial to see if this work method works for you.
There are many different ways you can combat procrastination. But be careful – searching for the perfect solution can become a form of procrastination!
The thing is there is no perfect solution. When it comes to doing difficult work, here’s what I find makes a difference: having your phone away from your body (preferably in another room), being clear on what you need to do, taking a deep breath, and getting started with a small task (even if you don’t feel like doing it).
Cramming can very easily become a bad habit. Let me explain.
When you procrastinate and leave your work until the night before it’s due, adrenaline and motivation kicks in. This allows you to work with crazy energy and intense focus.
At times, you might find yourself nervously thinking, “Can I get this thing done? Will I be able to pull this off?”. But you can’t afford to dwell on thoughts like these. There’s no time to waste! You have to stay focused, push forward, and keep pumping out your work.
And pump it out, you do!
Amazingly, in the early hours of the morning, you manage to pull it off. You reach the word count of your essay (“Woohoo! I did it! YES!”). And in that moment, you feel this incredible sense of relief wash away the intense pain, anxiety, and fear you felt for the last five or more hours. Your brain’s reward pathway lights up. Your brain gets flooded with feel good chemicals.
It’s this intense positive feeling that you experience straight after finishing an assignment that wires in the bad habit of last minute cramming. As Dr Barbara Oakley states in her book A Mind for Numbers:
“You can feel a sort of high when you’ve finished. Much as with gambling, this minor win can serve as a reward that prompts you to take a chance and procrastinate again. You may even start telling yourself that procrastination is an innate characteristic – a trait that is as much a part of you as your height or the color of your hair.”
When students manage to pull off a few all-nighters, they can start to delude themselves with thoughts such as, “This is just how I work. I work best under pressure” and “I do my best work (and only work) at the last minute”.
Studies show students who leave their work until the last minute don’t do as well as other students. They also tend to make more mistakes.
This study found procrastinators report higher stress levels, worse health, and lower grades.
When I first started university, I spent many late nights in the After Hours Computer Lab with my friends, crazily churning out essays the night before they were due. My friends and I were powered by bright fluorescent lights, sugary drinks, and snacks from the university vending machines.
At the time, it felt like fun. There was a sense of camaraderie in that computer lab. It was comforting to take a break when I hit a milestone (“Word Count: 1,000 words. Woohoo!”) and sink my teeth into a supersized chocolate chip cookie.
But looking back, that computer lab was a pretty depressing place to hang out. I can’t help but feel sorry for my younger self (Poor kid. What was I thinking?).
I can now see how the bad habit of cramming fuelled all these other bad habits at the time (e.g., bingeing on processed junk food and an erratic sleep routine). We were all suffering in that computer lab. We all needed help.
But when you’re stuck in that last minute, crazed, cramming habit loop you can’t see that you’ve got problems. You can’t see you’re heading for trouble. It’s the only way you know how to function and get stuff done.
It can feel hard for two reasons:
1) Procrastination delivers instant rewards (i.e., relief from the pain and discomfort of studying or writing a difficult essay). In contrast, the rewards that come from studying for an exam or working on an essay aren’t instant or guaranteed; and
2) The negative impacts of cramming don’t hit you straight away.
If after you reached the word count, you instantly felt really awful (e.g., mentally foggy, completely exhausted, and highly irritable) and all the mistakes and errors you had made flashed before your eyes, you would probably reconsider pulling all-nighters. You’d think to yourself, “This isn’t worth it. I feel terrible.” But it doesn’t work like that.
Like a bad hangover, that awful groggy feeling doesn’t hit you until several hours later. In relation to your grade and feedback, you don’t usually receive these until several weeks later. By then, you’ve forgotten how awful the cramming experience was.
Despite the negative impacts of cramming, some students tell me that they genuinely enjoy the challenge of cramming.
If this is you, I want you to think of cramming as being like an extreme sport, like Waterfall Kayaking, Skydiving and Barefoot Waterskiing. The sport of cramming requires a particular set of skills to pull off without seriously harming yourself. You’ll need to get better at:
• Managing your limited time and energy
• Managing your stress levels
• Memorising large amounts of material in a short period of time
• Keeping yourself awake for long periods of time (seriously not a good idea!)
I need to stress the following . . . going without sleep for long periods of time is incredibly dangerous.
In fact, this is why the Guinness World Records no longer accepts records for people going without sleep. This organisation will acknowledge records for people swallowing swords under water and pulling trains with their teeth, but not sleep deprivation records. That says a lot!
What about students who try to override their biological limits by taking medications like Ritalin (prescribed for attention deficit disorder) to get through cramming sessions?
Think twice about doing this.
As Dr Anna Lembke states in her book Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence:
“[These medications] promote short-term memory and attention, but there is little to no evidence for enhanced long-term complex cognition, improved scholarship, or higher grades.”
The good news is procrastination and cramming are habits. And habits can be changed.
This is the topic of my latest book Ace Tests, Exams, and Big Life Projects: How to End Last Minute Cramming, Reclaim Your Sleep, and Restore Your Sanity.
In my book, I explore why we often avoid preparing for exams. One reason we avoid exam preparation is because we’re scared. We fear the discomfort and pain it will bring up.
You see, we perceive exams as being like this creature . . .
A big jumbled, tangled mess of ideas (I call this creature the Beast of Overwhelm). We look at the creature (i.e., all the work we need to do) and it brings up a cringey discomfort. Since we don’t like feeling uncomfortable, we run from this creature. We run to anything that brings us instant gratification, comfort, and relief.
The problem is every time we do this we are moving further away from our long-term goals. Ultimately, when we procrastinate we are making life harder for our future selves.
You can start by making some tweaks to your environment. Redesign your study space to make it harder to escape from the beast. Create a focus friendly environment that allows you to hang out with the beast for a little longer.
For instance, set up barriers between you and the things that try to hijack your attention. Internet blocker apps, a Kitchen safe (Ksafe) for your phone, noise blocking earmuffs, and AdBlocker plugins can help you stay on track and move closer towards your goals.
Another strategy worth adopting is setting the bar really low. Try creating some tiny habit recipes.
The Tiny Habits method (created by Professor BJ Fogg) is the complete opposite of cramming. Tiny habits are behaviours that take less than 30 seconds to do. Unlike cramming (which can feel painful), tiny habits are fun, fast, and easy.
As Giovanni Dienstmann states in his book Mindful Self-Discipline:
“Don’t aim for perfect – aim for better than yesterday. Aim for 1% improvements every day. This compounds into huge results over time.”
This is certainly what I’ve found with using tiny habits. Tiny improvements add up over time to something really solid.
You can break the cramming habit once and for all. All it takes are a few strategies, a bit of understanding of basic psychology, and some practice. By creating better study habits, you’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish over time. You’ll also feel a whole lot better, too.
Here’s what comes to mind . . .
I see a middle aged man hunched over a keyboard. He’s wearing a freshly pressed shirt his mother has just ironed. His belly is spilling over his pants.
He’s toxic.
He’s a bully.
He’s totally destructive.
Now I want you to imagine this ugly troll lives within you.
He’s not trolling other people. This troll is hurling nasty comments directly at you – “You’re stupid!”, “You’re lazy” and “You’re going to fail, so why even bother?”
When we say these cruel things to ourselves, we’re effectively trolling ourselves.
We can mistakenly believe that criticising ourselves will motivate us to try harder. To lift our game. To not make the same mistake again. But sadly, it has the opposite effect.
Research by Dr Kristen Neff at the University of Texas at Austin shows that when we judge ourselves harshly this decreases our motivation to study. It makes it harder for us to keep going with that subject we’re struggling with.
Do we need to work on our self esteem?
According to Dr Neff focusing on boosting self esteem is problematic. Why? Because it typically relies on comparing yourself to others to feel a sense of superiority. You want to avoid the comparison trap at all costs.
A much better strategy is to practise self compassion.
Dr Neff defines self compassion as follows:
“ . . . self compassion involves being open to and aware of one’s own suffering, offering kindness and understanding to oneself, desiring the self’s well-being, taking a non-judgemental attitude towards one’s inadequacies and failures, and framing one’s own experience in light of the common human experience.”
In the context of learning, research has found that self compassion can help students to bounce back from academic failures.
In one study, Neff and her colleagues explored the relationship between self compassion and other psychological factors (e.g. intrinsic motivation) after a perceived academic failure. Here’s what this team of researchers did . . .
They recruited students who were enrolled in difficult university courses (and therefore, were likely to fail or not do well on the exam).
The students received their exam result and a day later they were asked to fill in a self report measure. The researchers then focused on students who related to their exam grade as a failure (i.e. they were highly dissatisfied with their grade).
Self compassionate students were more motivated to keep going after receiving their disappointing exam result.
The researchers stated:
“Even after receiving a disappointing grade, it seems that self-compassionate individuals were more able to remain interested and involved in the course topic. This may be due to the fact that self-compassionate individuals do not launch into excessive self-blame when they fail or feel isolated and over-identified with their failure – behaviors that are likely to detract from the ability to remain interested in learning for its own sake.”
In addition, other studies have found self compassionate students are less likely to procrastinate. The figure below is from a study called Start today or the very last day? The relationships among self-compassion, motivation, and procrastination. The solid black bar represents the students who scored high in self compassion (note: this difference was statistically significant).
A lot of the time when we procrastinate, it’s not because we’re lazy. It’s because we’re feeling scared. We’re scared of failing and looking stupid.
The thing about self compassionate students is they have less fear of failure. They don’t see failure as an attack on their self worth or identity but as an opportunity to learn and grow. So they tend to just get on with doing what they need to do.
As Dr Neff states:
“One thing self compassion gives you is it makes it safe to fail. When you know that when you fail you won’t desert yourself, you’ll still be there for yourself, you’ll still be kind and supportive to yourself, what it does is it makes it safe to fail and it allows you to learn from your failure.”
We’re masterful at self-criticism but terrible at saying kind things to ourselves. Rest assured, with a little practise, you can swap the self-trash talk habit for self compassion.
Here are three strategies you can test out:
You’re not the only person who makes mistakes and stuffs up. Everyone bombs out on tests or exams from time to time. We all have bad days.
Who wants to be perfect and do things perfectly anyway?
That’s boring.
As Scott Berkun says in his book Confessions of a Public Speaker:
“If you’d like to be good at something, the first thing to go out the window is the notion of perfection. Every time I get up to the front of the room, I know I will make mistakes. And this is OK. If you examine how we talk to one another every day, including people giving presentations, you’ll find that even the best speakers make tons of mistakes.”
He goes onto add:
“Obsessing about perfection stops you from growing. I don’t want to be perfect. I want to be useful, I want to be good, and I want to sound like myself. Trying to be perfect gets in the way of all three.”
So accept that you’re going to fumble, be clumsy and make A LOT of mistakes. Ultimately, this is how you learn and grow.
In the book Tiny Habits, professor BJ Fogg talks about the importance of celebrating little wins. Every time you engage in a positive behaviour that leads you towards your goals and aspirations, you need to release a positive emotion to wire in that new habit. For instance, you could say “Good job!”, clap your hands or do a little dance.
I’ve found that celebrating tiny successes, such as making my bed and putting on my walking shoes, helps to keep my inner troll in check.
Imagine a kind friend is experiencing your exact same situation. What would you say to them?
Chances are you wouldn’t dare say all these cruel things you’re currently saying to yourself.
Think about what gentle and encouraging words you would text or email to this friend. Write them down. And then read those kind word out to yourself.
Life is hard. Why make things even harder by trolling yourself? In these uncertain times, we need to protect our mental environment. Practising self compassion can strengthen us mentally and help us to keep moving forward.
Dr Jane Genovese delivers interactive sessions on learning to learn, combating procrastination, exam preparation, how to focus in the age of distraction, habit formation and much, much more!
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