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When Are You Procrastinating? And Is It Bad For You? - Darius Foroux
The Good Type of Procrastination
The topic of procrastination is highly debated.
Many arguments revolve around the fact that procrastinating is linked to depression, low-self esteem, or anxiety. This may be true, but the Zeigarnik Effect may prove something entirely different; it argues that an interruption during a task that requires focus can improve a person's ability to remember it afterwards.
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Key Ideas
The #1 skill to overcome procrastination
Facing a task, experiencing the uncomfortable emotions associated with it and doing the task despite those emotions.
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.
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Key Ideas
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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Key Ideas
Helpful procrastination
Procrastination is the action of delaying or postponing something.
From the outside, postponing your work can seem like a big waste of time. However, procrastination can help you do your wor...
Meaningful work
Doing creative and deep work requires you to let go. Procrastination allows one to get rid of the thoughts that are still occupying your mind. It helps you to loosen up.
Letting go
When you have been able to delay your work, your thoughts are empty and you are better able to work with challenging ideas. The work that follows is highly productive.