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Overcoming Procrastination: Why Mindfulness is The Key
The #1 skill to overcome procrastination
Facing a task, experiencing the uncomfortable emotions associated with it and doing the task despite those emotions.
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Key Ideas
Procrastination is an emotion management problem
Our mind is a reason-giving machine
It rationalizes the shit out of anything that’s just a little bit uncomfortable and create excuses as to why we shouldn’t do something now. Those excuses are irrational, but sound superficially reasonable.
Get better at facing your procrastination by:
- Becoming aware of any negative emotions and the excuses your mind is telling you.
- Learning how to deal effectively with emotions, as our natural tendency is avoidance .
- Practicing mindfulness, which allows us to take action despite experiencing negative emotions.
Mindfulness helps beat procrastination because:
- It helps in recognizing whatever emotions or thoughts we’re experiencing.
- It makes us more self-compassionate.
- It improves our self-control and emotion regulation abilities.
- It helps us tune out distractions.
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Procrastinating and emotions
According to traditional thinking, procrastinators have a time-management problem. They are unable to understand how long a task will take and need to learn how to schedule their time better.
Short-term mood lifters
Studies show low mood only increases procrastination if enjoyable activities are available as a distraction. In other words, we're drawn to other activities to avoid the discomfort of applying ourselves.
Adverse consequences
Procrastination leads to two primary consequences.
- It's stressful to keep putting off important tasks and failing to meet your goals.
- Procrastination often involves delaying important health behaviors, such as taking up exercise or visiting a doctor.
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Why we procrastinate
Procrastination is more about our emotions than our tendencies for laziness or just being “bad at deadlines”. At its core, we procrastinate to keep ourselves happy in the moment.
...How to overcome your procrastination habit
We have two ways of dealing with our procrastination:
- Make whatever we’re procrastinating on feel less uncomfortable, and
- Convince our present selves into caring about our future selves.
Make getting started ridiculously easy
Often starting a task is the biggest hurdle. Research shows that progress—no matter how small—can be a huge motivator to help us keep going.
Set the timer for just 5 or 10 minutes. While the timer’s running, you don’t have to work, but you can’t do anything else. You have to sit with your work, even if you don’t get started.
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Neuroplasticity
... is how the brain changes (for better or worse) in response to repeated experience: the things we do often we become stronger at, and what we don't use fades away.
Addiction to information
Emotions and procrastination
If you noticed fear or anxiety around starting (or not finishing) a particular task, pay attention. These emotions are a great indicator of why you’re procrastinating.
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