How to stop procrastination ?Proven methods according to pyschology
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| How to stop procrastination |
There’s a lot of ways: Use the pomodoro technique, break the project down into smaller pieces, drink coffee, remove distractions from your workplace, listen to classical music (specifically this song), and just don’t procrastinate and how to stop procrastination.
Okay- Wha, What about that last bit?
"You know how you’ll have everything ready to do your work, you know exactly what to do, but you just can’t start"?
Sometimes for me it’s like there’s this physically painful forcefield between me and
action- and I just can’t…do anything...
Then I’ll open up Netflix and the pain will go away. That's the thing you don’t want to do.
So what can we do in those difficult moments to get stuff done without needing an approaching deadline to finally kick us into gear?
I’ll tell you: Do two pushups and take a shower."
whar the hell are you talking about?”
OK I know that doesn’t sound like much, but give me a couple minutes to explain the
process and the 5 concepts behind why it’s so effective.
First way according to physcology
The very first step in this is to notice what is going on in those moments when you are
having trouble getting started or when you are getting distracted.
This is something I picked up from Psychiatrist Judson Brewer. He gave a talk called “a simple way to break bad habits” where he talks about how you
can use mindfulness to stop cravings that lead to bad habits.
Judson described an incredibly successful experiment designed to help people abstain
from cigarette smoking. People were instructed to simply be curious about their smoking cravings when they appeared.
The point was to analyze and understand that craving. To not focus on “oh my god, I need a cigarette.”
but to focus on “Oh I suppose I’m a little tired or irritated with this slow internet,
so I am expecting a cigarette would make me less uncomfortable.” Just by taking a moment to really understand the craving, the participants had unprecedented success with abstaining from smoking.
So I started trying this when I was working and analyzed what was going on in my head
When I was having trouble staying on task.
Usually it was something I could put my finger on: I was irritated with how slowly I was progressing in the project, or I suddenly started wondering when Saturn was discovered, or I just really wanted to watch an episode of the Simpsons. Taking notice of the craving to get distracted helped way more than I expected.
It was enough to be able to say “That’s a stupid reason to stop working…” and the craving would pass.
Unfortunately it didn’t work all the time. This is where part 2 comes in.
Second way to stop procrastination.
The second part comes from human behavior master BJ Fogg. BJ describes in his TED talk how there are 2 very effective ways to create new positive habits: 1 you can Change your environment or 2 you can tack the habit you want to create onto an existing behavior. With the second method, BJ talks about how he was able to get in about a 100 pushups
a day by simply pairing a new behavior – pushups, with an existing behavior – going to the bathroom. So every time he got up to pee, he would do two pushups. You might say “Why not 10 at a time, he could do 500 pushups per day” – actually, the small number is important to the likelihood of him actually doing it.
For example, if you’re trying to get yourself into the habit of jogging every day, you’re
more likely to commit and make a habit- if your target is 200 meters per day rather than
5 kilometers.
No matter how tired you are, a jog up and down the street is do-able. And, you’ll probably end up doing more than 200 meters, but the point is that day by day you’re making it into a habit.
You can do all sorts of things with this concept like get yourself to start flossing everytime you brush your teeth. I chose to make the habit of doing pushups when I caught myself procrastinating.
I successfully made it a very regular habit by starting with 2 pushups, but now I regularly
do more like 10 or 15.
My experience
When I first started this, my idea was just that “If I’m gonna slack off, I might as well get some exercise” but this exercise helped me in a way I didn’t expect- it was giving me a small boost in willpower so I just would go back to work instead of opening up netflix.
Richard Branson has claimed that working out gives him 4 extra hours of productive time each day.
Productivity and BDNF(brain derived neurotrophic factor)
Several studies have shown that exercise increases BDNF (brain derived neurotrophic factor), which stimulates the production of new neurons. BDNF is very important to learning, memory and higher thinking. While a couple quick pushups isn’t going to grow me a whole ‘nother hippocampus,
it will increase blood flow, getting more energy and oxygen to the brain, making it
perform a little bit better.
Better performance also means increased willpower, which is usually enough to get control of myself and stay on task.
Another thing that might happen is my desire to get distracted and stop working will be less than my desire to not have to get up
and exersice .these two situations alone are usually enough to keep me from procrastinating.
And, this small practice is reinforcing my ability to be mindful of my actions.
In another article I talked about how sites on the internet like facebook or twitter use a “Hook” to keep you constantly using them.
This mindfulness practice makes it easy to get yourself out of this hook say.
So What do you do when you have the willpower to work, but you need to come up with new ideas to continue?
If the task at hand only requires the will to do it, you can continue using the exercise trick to boost your willpower.
But What if you’re at the point where creativity is necessary? This is where the shower comes in.
Surely anybody has had the experience of being in a shower and having a good idea suddenly hit them out of nowhere.
8.2 million subscribers to the subreddit /r/showerthoughts shows how universal of a phenomenon that is.
The key with the shower is not necessarily the action of washing yourself- the key is
actually being isolated in a usually quiet room where you’re not working or watching
TV or checking your phone.
When Salvador Dali needed creative inspiration, he would relax on his sofa with keys in his hand and when he dozed off, the keys falling would wake him up.
He would then quickly jot down whatever ideas he had in that moment. Thomas Edison did something similar with ball bearings and relaxing in his chair.
Albert Einstein supposedly had one of his insights about the nature of light when he was rowing on a boat in the middle of Lake Geneva. The common theme here is... they’re not doing much. Their minds are relaxed and not straining on a particular task.
So it doesn’t have to be a shower - you can replace it with a distraction free walk, relaxing in a chair, just something slow and quiet to keep your mind relaxed.
However, If you do happen to be able to take a brief shower or bath the warmth of it cause
you to release dopamine, and increased dopamine flow is linked to better creativity.
Focus mode
So what’s going on here?Engineering professor Barbara Oakley has a good explanation for what’s going on.
She says there are two modes for the brain: a “focus mode” where you are focused on
a particular task, and a “diffuse mode” where you are relaxed. You can think of these states as your brain being two different types of pinball machines. The focus mode brain has many bumpers, so once the pinball takes off it’s easy for the ball to get stuck in a certain area.
The diffuse mode brain has less bumpers, so the pinball bounces much farther around and
more parts of the brain can be accessed. In his book “Originals,” Adam Grant says that this sort of productive procrastination is actually one of the traits of creative people who take truly original ideas and turn them into multi million dollar companies The last part of this has to do with the flow state
Steven Kotler, the author of The Rise of Superman, talks about something called the “flow state”,a state he describes as an optimal state.
Hope you find it intreasting.see you in next article.
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