{"id":1001,"date":"2020-02-27T15:00:59","date_gmt":"2020-02-27T08:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/illume-emag.com\/?p=1001"},"modified":"2022-01-12T16:59:02","modified_gmt":"2022-01-13T00:59:02","slug":"confront-fears-four-ways-stop-procrastinating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/confront-fears-four-ways-stop-procrastinating\/","title":{"rendered":"Confront your fears \u2026 and four other ways to stop procrastinating"},"content":{"rendered":"

Address your perfectionism, make a small starting step and break the cycle that is holding you back<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Figure out the underlying cause<\/strong>
\nClare Evans, a productivity coach and author of Time Management For Dummies, says the main reasons for procrastinating are fear, perfectionism and not knowing where to start, or feeling overwhelmed or unmotivated. If it is fear, whether unfounded or founded, Evans says to confront the worst-case scenario: \u201cIt may not be as bad as we think.\u201d Figure out what knowledge or skills you are lacking, and delegate if you can. If you\u2019re paralysed by the need to get it right, Evans suggests honestly confronting whether \u201c\u2018perfect\u2019 is really what\u2019s needed\u201d \u2013 or if it is more important just to get it done. \u201cSometimes we procrastinate over tasks that aren\u2019t really that important.\u201d<\/p>\n

Start with one small step<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tim Pychyl, founder of the Procrastination Research Group and associate professor of psychology at Carleton University, Ottawa, says procrastination boils down to an \u201cemotion-focused coping response\u201d: by putting off the task, we get rid of the bad feeling. Start by simply identifying the first step: \u201cAsk yourself, \u2018What is the next action I would take on this task, if I was going to do it?\u2019\u201d And make it really tiny. The idea is to move your focus away from how you\u2019re feeling, and towards what Pychyl calls a \u201clow-threshold entry to action\u201d: \u201cWe can\u2019t deny our feelings, but we can pay less attention to them \u2026 and our research has shown that getting started is key.\u201d Evans suggests working on the task for 10 to 15 minutes and no more, just so as to have made a start.<\/p>\n

Picture your future self<\/strong>
\n\u201cGiving yourself a hard time only makes it worse,\u201d says productivity expert Moyra Scott. \u201cIn order to beat procrastination you have to realise that it is very common. We are human. We procrastinate.\u201d It can help to clarify or visualise what \u201cdone\u201d looks like, she says: \u201cWhat is the finish line you are aiming at?\u201d Hal E Hershfield, an associate professor of marketing and behavioural decision making at UCLA Anderson School of Management, pictures himself having to do a task today that he actually completed yesterday.\u201c That\u2019s most likely how I\u2019ll feel tomorrow if I push off something that I\u2019m meant to do today. The idea is to try to connect with the person I\u2019ll be in the future and the emotions that I will eventually feel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Break the cycle<\/strong>
\nJudson A Brewer, a neuroscientist and director of Research and Innovation at the Mindfulness Centre at Brown University, says procrastination has its origins in reward-based learning: a trigger (think about a deadline), a behaviour (scroll social media), then a reward (distract from the unpleasant thought). Willpower alone is often not enough to overcome such a powerful impulse, evolved to help us remember where to find food. But by making ourselves aware of our habit loops, says Brewer, we give ourselves the opportunity to break them. \u201cCuriosity is like a superpower that can help us notice these urges simply as thoughts, emotions and body sensations, and then move on to the task at hand.\u201d The reward can be reframed as the feeling of accomplishment, instead of the relief (tempered by guilt and building anxiety) of a momentary distraction. \u201cReflecting on the rewarding properties of not procrastinating builds healthy habits that become stronger than procrastination itself \u2013 hacking our brain in the process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stop trying to fight the monkey<\/strong>
\nProductivity coach Grace Marshall says one common misconception about productivity is that it is \u201cjust about nailing yourself to the seat, and getting it done\u201d. While that is sometimes effective (and, if a deadline is looming, necessary), it can be a stressful approach, she says \u2013 \u201cand as willpower is a depleting resource, it\u2019s not sustainable\u201d. Her suggestion is to stop trying to overpower or ignore the primitive part of our brain driving procrastination, and instead try to distract it. Tell yourself: \u201cI\u2019m not really going to work on this right now, I\u2019m just going to open the file and make some notes.\u201d Play \u2013 turning the task into a game or an experiment \u2013 can also be an effective diversion. As Marshall writes: \u201cFighting the monkey is exhausting, and it doesn\u2019t work very well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Source: The Guardian<\/p>\n

Photography: Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Address your perfectionism, make a small starting step and break the cycle that is holding you back Figure out the underlying cause Clare Evans, a productivity coach and author of Time Management For Dummies, says the main reasons for procrastinating are fear, perfectionism and not knowing where to start, or feeling overwhelmed or unmotivated. If […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1003,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13321,13318,17],"tags":[633,713,711],"class_list":{"0":"post-1001","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-green-life","8":"category-mind-posivity","9":"category-wellness-tips","10":"tag-healthy-life","11":"tag-procrastinating","12":"tag-wellbeing"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lavyon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}