How to Beat Procrastination
Tim Urban,/one of the Internet’s most popular writers,/shares his thoughts on a variety of topics/from everyday psychology to artificial intelligence on his blog,/Wait But Why. Here he writes a post on his own bad habit/—procrastination.
I’m just a lifelong procrastinator/who thinks about this topic all the time. I’m still in a total battle with my own habits,/but I have made some progress/in the last few years,/and I’m drawing my thoughts/from what’s worked for me.
To understand why procrastinators procrastinate so much,/let’s start by comparing the non-procrastinator’s brain/with the procrastinator’s brain:
Do you notice anything different? It seems the Rational Decision-Maker in the procrastinator’s brain/is coexisting with a pet/—the Instant Gratification Monkey. This would be fine/if only the Rational Decision-Maker knew/how to own a monkey. But unfortunately,/it wasn’t a part of his training/and he’s left completely helpless/as the monkey makes it impossible for him to do his job.
The fact is,/the monkey is the last creature/that should be in charge of decisions. He thinks only about the present,/trying to maximize the pleasure of the current moment. The monkey doesn’t understand the Rational Decision-Maker;/the Rational Decision-Maker doesn’t understand the monkey either. Why would we continue jogging,/the monkey thinks,/when we could stop,/which would feel better? Why would we practice that instrument/when it’s not fun? He thinks humans are insane. In the monkey world,/he eats when he is hungry,/sleeps when he is tired,/and doesn’t do anything difficult.
There’s one thing that scares the monkey. It is called the Panic Monster. The monster is inactive most of the time,/but he suddenly wakes up/when a deadline gets too close,/or when there’s danger of public embarrassment/or some other scary consequence. It freaks the monkey out of the wheel/and the Rational Decision-Maker regains control to finish the task/in the last minute. However,/some procrastinators don’t even respond to the monster. In the most desperate moments,/they run up the tree with the monkey,/entering a state of shutdown.
Now,/let’s examine the diagram/which represents the challenge at hand/anytime you take on a task. The Critical Entrance/is where you go when you start the task;/the Dark Woods/is where you’re actually doing the work;/and once you finish,/you’re rewarded by ending up in the Happy Playground/—a place where you feel satisfaction/because you got something done. You occasionally even enter a state of Flow,/where you’re so immersed in the task/that you lose track of time. Sounds pretty simple,/right?
Unfortunately,/procrastinators tend to miss out on both the Happy Playground and Flow. For example,/consider a procrastinator/who couldn’t bring himself to get started. He spent hours in the Dark Playground,/one of the monkey’s favorite places,/knowing the deadline was drawing near. He was only making his life harder by not starting. Eventually,/the deadline got so close,/the Panic Monster suddenly came roaring into the room,/causing him to fly through the task/to hit the deadline. After he finishes,/he feels decent/because he accomplished something,/but he’s not that pleased/because he knows he rushed to do it. He also feels/he wasted most of his day procrastinating. This lands him in Mixed Feelings Park.
What should you do/to keep this from happening? First,/you must make it through the Critical Entrance. This means stopping whatever you’re doing/when it’s time to begin the task. You put away all distractions and get started. This is the hardest part,/because this is where the monkey puts up his fiercest resistance. He absolutely hates stopping something fun/to start something hard. You need to be the strongest. If you can get started/and force the monkey into the Dark Woods,/you’ve broken a bit of his will.
The Dark Woods is where you’re working. It’s not a fun place to be,/and the monkey wants nothing to do with it. To make things harder,/the Dark Woods is surrounded by the Dark Playground. And the monkey will try as hard as he can/to leave the Dark Woods.
If you can power through a bit of the Dark Woods,/something funny happens. Making progress on a task/produces positive feelings of accomplishment/and raises your self-esteem. When you feel a jolt of self-satisfaction,/the monkey finds a High Self-Esteem Banana in his path. It doesn’t suppress his resistance entirely,/but it goes a long way toward distracting him/for a while;/you’ll find that the urge to procrastinate has diminished. If you continue along,/something magical happens. Once you get two-thirds of the way through a task,/you start to feel great about things/and suddenly, the end is in sight. This is the Tipping Point.
The Tipping Point is important/because it’s not just you who can smell the Happy Playground up ahead/—the monkey can smell it too. Once you hit the Tipping Point,/the monkey becomes more interested/in getting to the Happy Playground/than the Dark Playground. When this happens,/you lose all impulse to procrastinate,/and now both you and the monkey/are speeding toward the finish. Before you know it,/you’re done,/and you’re in the Happy Playground.
One last word of caution:/what makes procrastination so hard to beat/is that the Instant Gratification Monkey has a terribly short-term memory. Even if you succeed on Monday,/when you begin a task on Tuesday,/he has forgotten everything/and will again resist entering the Dark Woods. And that’s why persistence is such a critical component of success. Laying each brick yields an inner struggle. But in the end,/your ability to lay brick after brick,/day after day,/is what lies at the core of a procrastinator’s struggle/to gain control over his world.
So much of what makes people happy or unhappy/—their level of satisfaction,/their self-esteem,/the regrets they carry with them/—is severely affected by procrastination. So the time to start improving is now.
Tim Urban,/one of the Internet’s most popular writers,/shares his thoughts on a variety of topics/from everyday psychology to artificial intelligence on his blog,/Wait But Why. Here he writes a post on his own bad habit/—procrastination.
I’m just a lifelong procrastinator/who thinks about this topic all the time. I’m still in a total battle with my own habits,/but I have made some progress/in the last few years,/and I’m drawing my thoughts/from what’s worked for me.
To understand why procrastinators procrastinate so much,/let’s start by comparing the non-procrastinator’s brain/with the procrastinator’s brain:
Do you notice anything different? It seems the Rational Decision-Maker in the procrastinator’s brain/is coexisting with a pet/—the Instant Gratification Monkey. This would be fine/if only the Rational Decision-Maker knew/how to own a monkey. But unfortunately,/it wasn’t a part of his training/and he’s left completely helpless/as the monkey makes it impossible for him to do his job.
The fact is,/the monkey is the last creature/that should be in charge of decisions. He thinks only about the present,/trying to maximize the pleasure of the current moment. The monkey doesn’t understand the Rational Decision-Maker;/the Rational Decision-Maker doesn’t understand the monkey either. Why would we continue jogging,/the monkey thinks,/when we could stop,/which would feel better? Why would we practice that instrument/when it’s not fun? He thinks humans are insane. In the monkey world,/he eats when he is hungry,/sleeps when he is tired,/and doesn’t do anything difficult.
There’s one thing that scares the monkey. It is called the Panic Monster. The monster is inactive most of the time,/but he suddenly wakes up/when a deadline gets too close,/or when there’s danger of public embarrassment/or some other scary consequence. It freaks the monkey out of the wheel/and the Rational Decision-Maker regains control to finish the task/in the last minute. However,/some procrastinators don’t even respond to the monster. In the most desperate moments,/they run up the tree with the monkey,/entering a state of shutdown.
Now,/let’s examine the diagram/which represents the challenge at hand/anytime you take on a task. The Critical Entrance/is where you go when you start the task;/the Dark Woods/is where you’re actually doing the work;/and once you finish,/you’re rewarded by ending up in the Happy Playground/—a place where you feel satisfaction/because you got something done. You occasionally even enter a state of Flow,/where you’re so immersed in the task/that you lose track of time. Sounds pretty simple,/right?
Unfortunately,/procrastinators tend to miss out on both the Happy Playground and Flow. For example,/consider a procrastinator/who couldn’t bring himself to get started. He spent hours in the Dark Playground,/one of the monkey’s favorite places,/knowing the deadline was drawing near. He was only making his life harder by not starting. Eventually,/the deadline got so close,/the Panic Monster suddenly came roaring into the room,/causing him to fly through the task/to hit the deadline. After he finishes,/he feels decent/because he accomplished something,/but he’s not that pleased/because he knows he rushed to do it. He also feels/he wasted most of his day procrastinating. This lands him in Mixed Feelings Park.
What should you do/to keep this from happening? First,/you must make it through the Critical Entrance. This means stopping whatever you’re doing/when it’s time to begin the task. You put away all distractions and get started. This is the hardest part,/because this is where the monkey puts up his fiercest resistance. He absolutely hates stopping something fun/to start something hard. You need to be the strongest. If you can get started/and force the monkey into the Dark Woods,/you’ve broken a bit of his will.
The Dark Woods is where you’re working. It’s not a fun place to be,/and the monkey wants nothing to do with it. To make things harder,/the Dark Woods is surrounded by the Dark Playground. And the monkey will try as hard as he can/to leave the Dark Woods.
If you can power through a bit of the Dark Woods,/something funny happens. Making progress on a task/produces positive feelings of accomplishment/and raises your self-esteem. When you feel a jolt of self-satisfaction,/the monkey finds a High Self-Esteem Banana in his path. It doesn’t suppress his resistance entirely,/but it goes a long way toward distracting him/for a while;/you’ll find that the urge to procrastinate has diminished. If you continue along,/something magical happens. Once you get two-thirds of the way through a task,/you start to feel great about things/and suddenly, the end is in sight. This is the Tipping Point.
The Tipping Point is important/because it’s not just you who can smell the Happy Playground up ahead/—the monkey can smell it too. Once you hit the Tipping Point,/the monkey becomes more interested/in getting to the Happy Playground/than the Dark Playground. When this happens,/you lose all impulse to procrastinate,/and now both you and the monkey/are speeding toward the finish. Before you know it,/you’re done,/and you’re in the Happy Playground.
One last word of caution:/what makes procrastination so hard to beat/is that the Instant Gratification Monkey has a terribly short-term memory. Even if you succeed on Monday,/when you begin a task on Tuesday,/he has forgotten everything/and will again resist entering the Dark Woods. And that’s why persistence is such a critical component of success. Laying each brick yields an inner struggle. But in the end,/your ability to lay brick after brick,/day after day,/is what lies at the core of a procrastinator’s struggle/to gain control over his world.
So much of what makes people happy or unhappy/—their level of satisfaction,/their self-esteem,/the regrets they carry with them/—is severely affected by procrastination. So the time to start improving is now.