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How to set clear objectives
How to follow up after a meeting
How to manage time effectively
Moving to the Other Side
The rising anxiety associated with a particular thing comes from a misapprehension of what it will actually be like to do the work.
The anxiety associated with the work is made of abstract, big-picture emotional concerns, about reputation, legacy, anxiety for the future, self-esteem, comparisons to others — worries about who you are, rather than what you’re doing. Once you enter the productive phase you enter the world of the concrete and finite, putting your related existential despair on the backburner.
You can’t see an obligation for what it actually is until you’re doing it.
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256 reads
MORE IDEAS ON THIS
The smart thing to do is obvious
It is to end the Counterproductive phase as soon as possible. This end is always a concrete, bodily action, often taken with some trepidation: opening up the word processor, dialing a phone number, or getting out a piece of paper so you can sketch up a plan.
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413 reads
Halt the Pointless Rumination
When you halt your work on a given thing due to fear or aversion, you are re-entering the nonproductive phase. Physical action ceases, and pointless rumination begins. Anxiety will rise until you enter the Productive Phase again. This is a good reason not to switch tasks unnecessarily. Push one t...
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302 reads
Life Cycle of a Thing
The problem starts when you know what you need to do, but don't. The anxiety, shame and fear lie between the knowing and the doing. Nothing else happens in this phase except your suffering and aging, we can call this the Unproductive Phase.
At some point, often spurred by ...
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488 reads
Receding Fear of Tasks
The anxiety from the Productive Phase, soon drown as you begin to realize that the task is pretty doable, is finite and consists of small, ordinary actions like Googling, reading, and sketching.
Your sense of capability swells and the fear recedes. This phase takes less and less willpower ...
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358 reads
Beginning of the End
Many or most procrastinators are pessimists, habitually overestimating the difficulty of what they are avoiding. They think doing it is the hard part. But not doing it is much harder.
The odd task that turns out unexpectedly hard doesn’t change anything — the counterproductive pha...
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335 reads
Hell Zone
A Serious Procrastinator might experience the overlapping fear from many sources and begin to see them as a single problem: I suck at life. This makes it harder for them to do any task with longer Unproductive Phases and increased anxiety with a daring crisis to force them to ac...
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321 reads
Finish it by Starting
The critical point is always where you enter the productive phase, and this is accomplished by starting alone. Finishing is only a matter of starting from where you are, as many times as you have to, until it’s done.
Most of the resistance and stress is piled up on the boundary be...
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318 reads
Ignore Your Stuff
Consider your "stuff" as individual happenings that are best treated individually. Ignore all the others while you target to get started on at least one of those To-Do tasks.
The distinction between stuff and things is important. Once you’re treating each obligation as separate from the w...
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555 reads
I Procrastinate
There are normal people, who get overwhelmed on those occasions when they have more obligations to fulfill than time in which to fulfill them.
Procrastinators are constantly overwhelmed because e...
101
894 reads
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More like this
Anxiety associated with obligations
It comes from a misapprehension of what it will actually be like to do the work.
This anxiety is made of abstract, big-picture emotional concerns, about reputation, legacy, anxiety for the future, self-esteem, comparisons to others — worries about who you are, rather than what you’...
Beginning of the End
Many or most procrastinators are pessimists, habitually overestimating the difficulty of what they are avoiding. They think doing it is the hard part. But not doing it is much harder.
The odd task that turns out unexpectedly hard doesn’t change anything — the counterproductive pha...
Requirements To Enter Flow
To enter flow, you need appropriated self-control, environmental conditions, skills, task and rewards. Besides that, you must know what you’re doing, be able to see whether or not you’re doing it well, and be pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone.
The last point is esp...
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