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Episode 443 – fighting procrastination

• Welcome back
• So glad you are here
• I am fascinated with everything that helps me become my best self
• Ever since I began the QFY journey, I have filled my days with buckets of purpose, as I call them
  • I have allocated most of my time to areas that have meaning for me and that make my life better
• But that doesn’t mean I am always effective with my time
• In fact, I believe I could be much further ahead with my buckets of purpose if I procrastinated less and focused more
• On the previous episode we talked about the Akrasia effect
  • The phenomenon we know all to well of not following through on our plans
  • acting contrary to what you decided
  • doing the opposite of what we set out to do
• the explanation for this effect lie, as I observe on my own life, in the way we perceive time
• while we love planning for the future, we don’t actually like to take action once the future arrives
  • you all probably have at some point prepared with great motivation for a new challenge
  • maybe a fitness goal or a new activity or maybe even a business idea
  • but when it came time to take actual steps, to go out and make things happen, and on a consistent basis, you struggled
  •  
• Because change is hard
• Change requires stepping out of our comfort zone and doing something new
  • Something we are not used to
• We are creatures of comfort
• We like our routines
• The new things is not part of the routine yet
• It interferes with our hold habits and therefore it makes it hard
• It requires willpower and when that fails us, we can say Akrasia has hit
• Which is also referred to as Weakness of will
• I look at willpower as a reservoir
• Every morning when we wake up, we are given a limited amount
  • Not always the same depending on the things that are going on in our lives
  • Stress, lack of sleep, physical illness can make our reservoir dwindle very quickly
• I prefer to rely on willpower as little as possible because it quite often disappoints me
• On a good day I can ignore those snacks in the office
• But as soon as things get hectic, they are my first aid to calm me
  • Because carrot sticks and cucumber slices are just not as calming as chocolate covered almonds
• We need power of will every day, whether we notice it or not
  • Swallowing your words and remaining silent in a meeting where the discussion gets heated
  • People cutting you off in traffic while you resist the temptation to honk and get angry
  • Forcing yourself to get up earlier to go the gym
  • Even small things such as mincing your words with people to remain friendly costs willpower
• So when it comes to the big goals we have set, the new challenges we want to undertake, I prefer to bridge the gap between idea and action with strategies
• I want to minimize the chance that I don’t follow through
• And thereby prevent the Akasia effect from kicking in
• Because I realized:
• The better my strategies, the more effective I am with my purpose buckets
  • just because they are areas of my life I am passionate about, doesn’t mean they are easy to follow through on
  • They often involve quite a bit of discomfort, risk, and hard work
  • And most of all – they require time
  • Time I rarely have laying around
• So in order to increase the chance that I follow through I try to design methods around them that force me to follow through
• I want to rely as little as possible on having to make a decision and instead just want to follow a process
• Processes have the tendency to keep us in check
• Just think about your morning routine, which most likely you follow without ever questioning any of the steps
  • Maybe you change the order sometimes
  • Or you speed up one of the processes when you’re in a hurry
  • But you probably rarely skip a step,
• Goals and plans are not yet part of a routine and that is what makes them so hard to follow
• So the first strategy is this:
• Make them part of a routine as quickly as possible – automate them
  • The best way to automate a task is to do it every day or on a set schedule
  • Climbing for example
  • You’d think climbing is a passion and as such should not be a problem to execute
  • True
  • But climbing takes at least one full day
  • If we are going out to Yosemite or further, it requires an entire weekend
  • As much as I love climbing, I have stuff to do on the weekend
  • Last year, every weekend I had to force myself to committ to go climbing
  • This year – I automated the decision by committing to climb every weekend
  • I found a new climbing partner so this also helped
  • When he heard that I want to climb every weekend, he also committed
  • We created a shared Google calendar where we mark our free weekends and on those weekends we climb
  • This now forces me to rearrange my other responsibilities
  • But the process is automated
  • I don’t have to debate the decision anymore – should I climb or not
  • Its done
  • I did the same with my workouts which I have shared with you before
  • I go to the gym every day
  • I don’t schedule rest days – I schedule workout days
  • And I workout until I need rest, which my body will tell me
  • And then I rest
  • Most people decide on the days they will work out, say Mo-Wed-Fri
  • But then something comes up on Friday and now they worked out only 2 days out of 7
  • Its most effective to plan whatever is important to you daily or at least weekly with a bigger timeslot
    • I shared about the shabbat practice my friend Marylin keeps
    • Every Saturday evening she signs off all her devices and is unavailable for 24 hours
    • She takes shabbat – she stops and rests
  • That is the reason my mediation practice hasn’t taken off yet
  • I haven’t automated it yet
  • And I haven’t removed obstacles yet that stand in the way to make it happen
• Strategy number 2
• Remove as many obstacles that hold you back
  • One of my obstacles that prevents me form doing yoga is that I go to bed to late
  • This holds me back from waking up earlier to do yoga
  • I am just to tired
  • If we want to remove obstacles, we first need to know what they are
  • This requires an honest look at ourselves
  • I dilly dally during the evenings
  • I squander my time
  • Instead of hitting the sheets, I do other things
  • Until I master an earlier bedtime, I will not master a morning mediation practice
  • What are your obstacles?
  • We all have them
  • Here is a hint:
  • They usually involve time misallocation
  • In order to get something done, you need time
  • Time you currently spend doing something else
  • Figure out what it is you spend your time one and see if you can remove that obstacle
  • Other obstacles require small changes in behavior
  • For example:
  • When I have an almond butter jar in my pantry, I will dip into it
  • It took me a year to figure this out
  • I finally stopped buying jars and instead purchased individual packages
  • And I realized, I actually barely use them
  • Almond butter was more like treat
  • In absence of chocolate, I dipped into that
  • I deleted facebook off my phone over a year ago
    • Obstacle removed
  • The biggest challenge is to start
  • Once you over come that, like the tunnel we talked about the other day, then you are rolling
  • So try to remove the obstacles that hold you back and make the road as straight and clear as possible
    • Find the conflict
    • Find your almond butter jar
    • Your facebook app
    • Or the time spent on something else
  • Remove the obstacle and clear the path to your goal
• My last strategy revolves around accountability
• Find something that raises the stakes
  • This can be a deadline
  • A person
  • A system that keeps you in check

• Let me give you an example
• My speaking program involved a lot of travel to the location of the program, but in between we had many things to prepare at home,
• I was very committed
• Every time on the flight back home, I planned my next 3 weeks out
• Every night, according to my calendar, I made something happen
• But as soon as I was back home in my daily routine, I forgot about my well-laid out plans
• Half a week would pass and I wouldn’t do a thing on my assignments
• But then I would suddenly feel the pressure
• Why
• Because every Sunday I met with my local group
• Members of the speaking program here in the bay area with whom I meet once a week to work on our assignments, mostly its rehearsal time
• They were always prepared, so it wouldn’t look good if I came unprepared
• They were my rescue
• Without them, I wouldn’t be as far along as I am with my program
• Peer pressure works magic
• Use it
• Force accountability on yourself
• We are not good at holding ourselves accountable
• Other are
• Even if they don’t do it directly by yelling at us when we don’t get stuff done
• Indirect pressure is enough
  • Afraid to look bad unprepared
  • Trying to keep up with others and be part of the group
• Deadlines we set for ourselves are not nearly as effective as when someone else actually waits on us to bring a certain results
• My podcast epsiodes are schedule to appear Monday, Wednesday, and Friday
• That’s a deadline
• Maybe You are waiting on my epsiodes , maybe not
• But I have made that commitment and in my mind I don’t want to let you down
• So I stick to this schedule
•  

• I use these 3 strategies all the time
• When I really want to get something done, I pull out my planner and I write it down
• It always starts with writing it down
• When I then don’t get it done, I try to automate it by scheduling it
• Once its scheduled, I already begin to look out for the obstacles that could stand in the way and I try to remove them
• And lastly, I build in accountability which raises the stakes for me to get something done

• Give one of these strategies a try when you notice that you are procrastinating and are not getting done what you set out to do
• Remember – time is a limited resource
• Lets use it on the endeavors that have importance and meaning for our live
• Those are often difficult ones, so they require strategies to help us overcome the routines that keep us comfortable, but sadly, also unchallenged

• Much love