Live your life from choice
A leadership function of your higher, human brain and your new identity as a producer.
Procrastinators do finish, but the work at the last minute creates unnecessary anxiety and diminishes quality.
Procrastination is a mechanism for coping with the anxiety associated with starting or completing any task or decision.
Our worst critic is ourselves
• Feeling that you need to force yourself, that you need internal conflict because it is human nature to be lazy.
i. Unconditional acceptance
Procrastination provides temporary relief from stress.
Procrastination isn’t the problem; it’s a symptom of other problems.
Observe yourself objectively – don’t judge or analyze your behavior.
Setting priorities – similar to Covey’s quadrant approach.
Track Time for everything:
• Find ways to free up time and avoid wasted activities.
• Procrastination log.
• Record procrastination patterns and inner dialogue.
i. Include basic information the day and time that you procrastinated, the activity you postponed and its priority, your thoughts and feelings about the task, your reason for procrastinating, the type of procrastination you used, your attempts at reducing anxiety, and your resultant thoughts and feelings.
You will continue to procrastinate until you adopt a strategy that allows you to find full satisfaction in starting on your high-priority projects.
Situations:
1. Board 100 feet long, 4 inches wide.
2. Now the board is 100 feet in the air.
3. Now the building on your end is on fire.
5 Stages
1. You give a task or a goal the power to determine your worth and happiness.
• Have to break the equation that self-worth = performance.
2. You use perfectionism to raise the task 100 feet above the ground.
3. You find yourself frozen with anxiety as a natural response.
4. You then use the procrastination to escape your dilemma.
5. You then use a real threat, such as a fire or a deadline, to release yourself from perfectionism and to act as a motivator.
Now imagine the board 100 feet in the air has a safety net 3 feet below it.
You want these safety nets in your life.
“Whatever happens I will survive. I will find a way to carry on. I will not let this be the end of the world for me. I will find a way to lessen the pain in my life and maximize the joy.”
You must create a protected and indisputable sense of worth for yourself.
Successful people normally have failed many times without it affecting their sense of worth and drive.
How you talk to yourself represents the attitudes and beliefs that determine how you feel and act. The self-talk of procrastinators often unconsciously suggests and reinforces feelings of victimhood, burden, and resistance to authority.
“I have to” or “I should do” • Communicates that I don’t want to do it, but must force myself. • Talking to yourself like a threatening parent to a child.
“I choose” or “I decide”
Every “have to” needs to be replaced with an adult decision about how you will begin the project or how you will explain that you will not do it.
The self-talk of “should” has the same negative effect as setting counterproductive goals, envying others, and longing for the future. It creates a sense of burden, victimhood, and failure.
Don’t worry about the “should have’s” of the past; the past is gone.
Don’t worry about the “shoulds” in regards to the future.
Make the future “shoulds” constructive by asking “when is the next time I can start working toward that goal?”
Clearly communicate to yourself what you choose to do, and when and where you will carry out your commitment to start.
Change in perspective
You do have a choice. You don’t have to want to do the task, nor do you have to love it. But if you prefer it to the consequences of not doing it, you can decide to commit to it wholeheartedly.
Whenever you catch yourself losing motivation on a project, look for the implicit “have to” in your thinking and make a decision at that moment to embrace the path – as it is, not the way you think it should be – or let go of it. It’s your choice.
Developing fresh alternative self-statements that involve choice, commitment, and the ability to say no is an essential step toward having a greater range of possibilities in working on any task and in changing from a procrastinator to an effective producer.
Being at peace with the choices you make is right in line with Deci and Covey.
Replace “I have to” with “I choose to” • Be aware and catch yourself doing this and immediately choose to work or accept responsibility for choosing to delay.
Replace “I must finish” with “When can I start?” • Focuses on starting instead to the finish, which creates being overwhelmed.
Replace “This project is so big and important” with “I can take one small step.”
• Take one small step, one rough, rough draft; one imperfect sketch; one small hello. That’s all you need to do now.
• With each step you will have time to appreciate your accomplishments, to gain perspective on your direction, and to recommit to your long-range goals.
Replace “I must be perfect” with “I can be perfectly human”
• The more perfectionist and self-critical you are, the harder it is to start on a project that you already know will never be quite good enough.
Replace “I don’t have time to play” with “I must take time to play”
• Knowing that you have something to look forward to in the near future – a firm commitment to recreation and time with friends – lessens the dread of difficult work.
• “I have to finish something big and do it perfectly while working hard for long periods of time without time to play.”
• Replaced with: “I choose to start on one small step, knowing I have plenty of time for play.”
One of the most devastating consequences of procrastination is that it leads to putting off living.
Procrastinators and Workaholics have many of the same tendencies:
• Always burdened by incomplete work
• View their lives as being on hold
• View human beings as lazy and that they require pressure
• Maintain negative attitudes towards work
Knowing that work will not deprive you of enjoying the good things of life, you can more easily tackle a large task without the fear of having it rule your life.
PhD students who did their dissertations fast:
• Dedicated and committed to their leisure time.
• Their health and recreation were high priorities and an integral part of their overall plan to do good work on the dissertation.
• Their lives were full.
Native excitement about learning gets lost through the process of being taught.
“Personally I’m always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.”
– Winston Churchill
When attempting to motivate yourself to start working on a goal, do you push yourself toward the goal with threats, or do you use your attraction to the goal to pull you forward?
The pull method assumes that we are naturally inquisitives, and if we are properly rewarded for our efforts we can persevere with even the most difficult of tasks.
The promise of future rewards for hard work has little control over what we choose to do now.
“Play hard in order to work more productively and efficiently.”
Jeff reorganized his schedule to include firm commitments to exercise and friends. This made it clear to him that his periods of work in isolation would have to be short and focused.
Guilt-free play, or at least the scheduling of it. That gives you a sense of freedom about your life that enables you to more easily settle into a short period of focused, quality work.
A commitment to a mission that focuses your energies and brings about inner harmony, a commitment that comes from a pull toward a goal and an excitement about the process of getting there.
Three major fears that block action and create procrastination are:
1. The terror of being overwhelmed
2. The fear of failure
3. The fear of not finishing
Tool 1: 3-dimensional thinking and the reverse calendar
Anxiety will not become overwhelming unless you:
1. Insist on knowing the one right place to start.
2. Have not permitted yourself time along the course of your project for learning.
3. Are critical of the fact that you’re only starting, and you tell yourself, “I should be finished!”.
Each achievement is diminished by being compared with the imagined ideal. You have little tolerance or compassion for your current level of imperfection and your current level of struggle.
Break a project into small manageable parts. As you picture several smaller deadlines – all within your control – the paralysis caused by trying to complete a large project (with dire consequences if you fail) disappears.
Start with the ultimate deadline and work backwards to the present where you can focus your energy on starting.
AND the reverse calendar should be used immediately if you feel overwhelmed at any point.
Tool 2: The work of worrying
Who of you can add one moment to his life’s course by worrying?
By alerting yourself to a potential danger without establishing a plan for how you will cope, you have done only half of the job of worrying. You’ve left out the positive “work of worrying” – developing an action plan.
Parents, bosses, and teachers often use threats and images of disaster to motivate us to achieve goals they have chosen. Such threats will only contribute to the procrastination cycle: threatening self-talk leads to anxiety, then to resistance, resulting in procrastination. Procrastination may temporarily lessen the tension of facing a challenging project and the risk of failing, but it cannot help you escape worry.
You have to move beyond scaring yourself with potential catastrophes. You have to direct the energy of worrying and panic into actual plans to remove the threat.
Take these steps to move beyond “what if” towards constructive preparation for potential danger. 6 questions to ask yourself:
True confidence is knowing that whether you’re calm or anxious, whether you succeed or fail, you’ll do your best and, if necessary, be ready to pick yourself up to carry on and try again.
Tool 3: Persistent starting
Establishing structures for overcoming blocks and good work habits for follow-through has benefits that far outshine whatever comfort or excitement there is in procrastinating on finishing.
What Laura realized is that it takes work to procrastinate and it takes work to face your fear of finishing. There’s really no escape from some form of work. Why not tackle the work that’s going to reap the most long-range benefits?
Identify the counterproductive statements and attitudes that tend to creep into your mind once you’ve gotten started on your work. Then use your anticipation of these negative self-statements to prepare challenges that take the fear out of finishing and free up your creative energy for the good stuff.
Prepare challenges to negative statement and attitudes
1. “I need to do more preparation before I can start.”
• Realized when preparation becomes procrastination.
2. “At this rate I’ll never finish.”
• You cannot judge your rate of progress by your current ability or knowledge.
3. “I should have started earlier.”
• Doesn’t matter, you didn’t. Don’t worry about it now; Keep moving forward.
4. “There’s only more work after this.”
• Again, don’t worry about this. You’re in control of what you’re working on now.
5. “It’s not working.”
• A certain amount of discomfort is natural in stretching beyond your comfort zone into a new level of skill.
• Maintain a resolute commitment to make things work on this path. As a producer, you are not testing a system to see if it can make your project painless, nor are you looking for the fantasized perfect plan with no problems. You are focusing on the desired results and making this path work for you.
6. “I only need a little more time.”
• Trying to make the finished product perfect and free from errors.
• Need to realize that there is no level of human perfectionism that will make the work invulnerable to criticism and rejection by some people.
Keep on starting
Essentially, all large tasks are completed in a series of starts.
Keep on starting, and finishing will take care of itself. When you’re afraid of finishing, keep asking, “When can I start?”
Trying to escape work by procrastinating will only increase your anxiety; only work will diminish your anxiety.
You can’t seem to get yourself to start working, at least not the way you feel about “work”. Work has meant deprivation, facing overwhelming tasks, facing insecurities and internal and external pressures for perfection, and forcing yourself to do something you’d rather not do.
Record every thirty minutes of uninterrupted quality work onto what I called my Unschedule.
Applying the “pull method” of motivation, I would make certain to do something I really enjoyed.
Schedule:
• Committed recreational activities
• Breaks
• Meals
• Socializing
• Play
• Chores
• Commuting
• Meals
• Sleep
This method of scheduling encourages you to start earlier on your project, because you now realize how little times is actually available for work after you deduct daily chores, meetings, commuting, meals, sleep, and leisure.
The unschedule begins with the image of play and a guarantee of your leisure time, so you know you’re not procrastinating on having fun and living fully. It clearly shows that your life isn’t devoid of fun and freedom.
The Unschedule builds up a subconscious desire to work more and play less.
Fill in your unschedule with work on projects only after you have completed at least one-half hour.
- It needs to be 30 minutes of uninterrupted work.
Reward yourself with a break or a change to a more enjoyable task after each period worked.
Keep track of quality hours each day and each week to help emphasize what you did accomplish.
Always leave at least one full day a week for recreation and any small chores you wish to take care of.
Before deciding to go to a recreational activity or social commitment, take time out for just thirty minutes of work on your project.
Focus on starting. Replace thoughts about finishing with thoughts about when, where, and on what you can start.
Think small. Do not aim to finish a book, etc. 30 minutes of quality work.
Never end “down”. Never stop work when you’re blocked or at the end of a section.
You will find work patterns with strengths and weaknesses after several weeks. You can then make adjustments as needed to better utilize your time.
Combined with the procrastination log will help to create future motivation.
Insights
- You’re busier than you thought
- Certain days are less productive than others
- Other days are so busy that you need to lower your expectations about getting started on a big project.
- Even a half-hour of work on your project is enough to maintain momentum and avoid the extra burden of having to overcome inertia tomorrow.
If, for example, you watch TV after giving up on a project, giving up will become an even stronger negative habit because it is followed by a reward.
Benefits:
1. Realistic timekeeping
2. Thirty minutes of quality time
3. Experiencing success – By recording time worked, you see your progress rather than your failure to meet an unrealistic schedule.
4. Self-imposed deadlines.
5. Newfound “free time”.
Characteristics of the flow state include calm, focused energy; time expansion; delight at new ideas; ease at avoiding or solving problems; and enhanced concentration.
“Willing suspension of disbelief” – temporarily putting aside the critical faculty of your logical mind. For example, when reading a book or watching a movie.
In order for this shift to take place, concerns about perfection, accuracy, and acceptance must be put aside temporarily.
Focusing exercise
- Sitting in a chair, focus on the chair and breathing deeply with your hands in your lap.
- Letting go of the past.
o With 3 breathes let go of what you were just currently doing.
- Letting go of the future.
o With 3 breathes let go of the anticipated future.
- Centering in the present.
o With 3 breathes just notice that it doesn’t take much energy to just be in the present.
Relaxation exercise
- Sitting in a chair, deep breathes.
- Words in the book to repeat.
- Relax, then with three breathes feel yourself becoming more awake and alert.
You can only work on one job and one step at a time.
The focusing exercise gave Jacob periodic two-minute breathers so he could stand back and evaluate the challenges he faced, allow himself time to push aside fears, remind himself that he didn’t have to do it all at once, and consider alternatives.
Each of us faces difficult times during which we are more apt to turn to procrastination as a familiar crutch.
Test yourself with a planned setback.
1. Choose a project on which you are likely to procrastinate.
2. Your planned setback will point out when you are most likely to procrastinate.
3. Notice the warning signs; feelings of being overwhelmed, deprived, isolated.
4. Consciously choose to procrastinate for a few hours to observe the self-statements, self-criticism.
5. Notice how this process of self-criticism leads to guilt, depression, and resentment while keeping you from actually doing the task.
Your planned setback will point out when you are most likely to procrastinate.
Now replay the setback, but use the tools outlined in the book.
• Use self-statements of a producer: I choose to start now, or I will accept the consequences of choosing to delay.
• Use the unschedule to create a realistic picture and to show guilt-free play.
• Use the focusing exercise; focus on the present with choice, motivation, and interest.
Resilience and Hardiness
A “failure” wants a guarantee before starting a project that everything will go perfectly, without any problems.
A mistake will not be the end of the world because I won’t let it be. I will pick myself up and will try again – regardless of how embarrassed or hurt I feel.
Anytime you try something new and commit yourself to a course of action you can expect some setbacks. The possibility of setbacks is not an excuse to procrastinate.
You may not be responsible for causing what happens to you, but you are responsible for what you do to correct it. • “why-whine”
The learned skill of bouncing back from disappointing performances.
Hardiness – three personality characteristics – commitment, control, and challenge.
Notice that you’re not trying to trick yourself about the reality of the hill; you’re just taking control over your attitude and how you talk to yourself, and that changes your experience of reality.
You can go farther than you think you can.
I’ve had to train myself to turn my attention away from finishing and toward the next step, the process of staying in the race.
Concentration: Controlling Distractions
The large majority of distractions can be dealt with after you complete some quality work.
If needed quickly jot down the distractions on paper.
Identify and record distractions.
At least 5 types of distractions:
1. Strong emotions
2. Warnings of danger – “I have to finish by Wednesday.”
3. “To-Do” Reminders
4. Escape fantasies
5. UFOs – Unidentified Flights of Originality
Effective Goal-setting
“Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.” – William James
One of the best-kept secrets of successful producers is their ability to let go of goals that cannot be achieved or started in the near future. To set realistic goals you must be willing to fully commit to working on the path to that goal and be capable of investing the time and energy required to start now. If you cannot find the time or motivation to start working on that goal, let go of it, or it will keep haunting you, making you feel like a procrastinator – as if you’d failed to accomplish something important that you promised yourself you would achieve. • Think of it as a wish rather than a goal.
Remember, you are the master of your goals; don’t let unrealistic goals be used as an occasion for self-criticism and for lapsing into identifying yourself as a procrastinator.
Three steps to applying Now Habit techniques to the task of setting goals effectively:
1. Recognize the work of procrastinating. Let go of the fantasy that you can escape work by procrastinating. There is no path in life that requires no effort.
2. Freely choose the entire goal. State your goal in the form of a choice or decision: “I freely choose to work on…”
a. Delaying gratification is a process of scheduling the pain and pleasure of life in such a way as to enhance the pleasure by meeting and experiencing the pain first and getting it over with.
b. Choosing to face the pain – because getting it out of the way allows you to start on the more pleasurable parts.
3. Create functional, observable goals. A realistic goal includes an action verb, a deadline, and a cost component, usually time or money.
a. Divide your goal into action-oriented clearly observable sub-goals.