Procrastination, the monster we cannot seem to conquer
Sometimes you’ve just got to think differently to get the win
What we’ll be talking about in this article:
YouTube’s productivity culture
Psychology of procrastination
Three leftfield ideas to address procrastination
I’ve harped on about my disdain for the whole YouTube Productivity subculture we have on our hands at the moment but like a broken clock, it’s going to be correct at least once a day, if it’s digital anyway, older wrong clocks are correct at least twice a day. Regardless, Sun Tzu (he who wrote The Art of War in the 5th century BCE) was big on the idea of “knowing your enemy” and who am I to go against the great man himself.
Indeed, learning about what ‘the other’ are up to gives you the advantage of being able to see through their shenanigans.
The idea of procrastination comes up time and again in their videos. That’s fair game, after all, many people out there are totally crippled by procrastination. From a psychological viewpoint, procrastination usually comes down to a couple of factors: fear of failure, short-term gratification over long-term success, impulsivity (i.e. not sticking to the proper task at hand), and plain old bad time management.
This isn’t an article about addressing those elements though, that would be too predictable, instead, I want to write about three methods that are pretty leftfield but I’ve found them working with my counseling clients.
Every night you die
This idea came to me when I was reading a little bit about Heraclitus. You know who I’m talking about, I’d guess. If you don’t, he was a Greek pre-Socratic philosopher, probably most famous for the lines: “No man ever steps in the same river twice. For it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”
No two events are the same, no two days are the same, no two meals are the same, and no two of anything are the same. Many of us procrastinate because we put things on the long finger and say “Ah sure, I’ll do it tomorrow.”
But since no two moments, days, etc. are the same then tomorrow you’re not the same and the task isn’t the same. It still has to be done but now you’re a day later tackling it.
Imagine then that every night after you fall asleep the latest version of you dies and a new one is manifested every morning. Let’s say you’re going to live to the ripe of old of 93, that’s 33,986. So, there will be just shy of 40,000 of you over your lifetime but each one is ever so slightly different from day to day.
Look at it this way, the thing you were supposed to do today but didn’t now becomes the responsibility of tomorrow’s you. But that you isn’t the same you, not completely. You need to do it because the next you might throw in the towel, or put it off again because yesterday’s you wasn’t bothered. Life is short y’know, do the thing and stop putting it off.
So imagine that you only have 24 hours per day to be alive, the first six to seven you’re asleep, and for the last two or three as well. You’ve got between 14 to 16 hours to get stuff done so that the next you down the line has a lighter load. Don’t you want to help future you?
Help the future yous
Imagine then that all the versions of yous pay in their deed to a storage bank and this storage bank is like the ideal life you want to live.
Sure, it’s easy to kick the can down the road because one of the future yous will pick up the slack, won’t they? Well, no, why would they? If present you has this flawed logic then there’s a good likelihood that the future yous are going to have, at least some of, this mindset too.
And, if nobody is paying their deeds into the storage bank then you’re going to end up with a pretty empty safe deposit box.
Reward deals
So then, on reflection, you don’t want to let the future yous down. You want that storage bank filled up so that you are on the path to the life you want.
So, you decide instead to tackle the task today. Excellent. Now, here’s where you make a deal. You do the hard task today so that in a few days time you reward a future you with a day off or attend a social event with your buddies. If you frontload your work now you know that a payoff is coming down the line.
Am I stupid?
Ask yourself now, compared to the future yous coming down the line, am I more stupid than what will come after me?
That’s an awful long line of future yous, so, the answer would unfortunately have to be yes. But, nobody wants to be the stupidest so look, instead think of it as every day you have an opportunity to make small intelligence and experiential gains that will compound into the future. By learning today and doing the tasks at hand you’re really being nothing other than your own best friend.
Hi, I’m Paddy. Thanks for reading my article about my article about beating procrastination.
I’m a counselor and spirituality teacher.
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