<ol><li>Plan your day ahead of time. Time block at what hour you will do each item on your agenda. Block your day in the objectivity of the evening before.</li><li>Know what your vulnerabilities are, what has derailed you lately. Make a Not-To-Do list alongside your To-Do list.</li><li>Clearly define priorities. Know what you’re working toward, and what real progression in your life means. </li><li>Establish structure and deliberate routine to get freedom from the tyranny of your subconscious impulses.</li></ol>

How to overcome the Procrastination Monster

“Your most persistent distractions will seem justified to you.” - James Clear

Then at a certain point in the day (late afternoon if I was lucky or evening if I wasn’t), it occurred to me I hadn’t started The Big Important Thing. Each day has one. Today has one. You have one.

The Big Important Thing

"Early-day and late-day time used to move at different speeds for me. Late-day time was  dense, tight, things happened, shit got done. Early-day time was loose, laid-back, chill — there was slack to play with, room to roam.It’s not that I wasted the mornings and early afternoons — I did worthwhile work-ish things. I’d read up on new software I might put to good use one day, or check out the latest from others in my field, or learn a new tip/trick/hack that would certainly come in handy. You know, I was getting better at stuff. I was learning stuff."

August Bradley writes...

Time is linear, but our perception of it is non-linear. And since we accept perception as reality, our distorted sense of time puts us in a distorted reality. No wonder we have trouble consistently progressing over time. We don’t rate or value (or even respect) each moment equally. We have a fixed number of minutes in life, and each minute holds the same potential or opportunity. Yet we don’t perceive it that way. And as a result, we sabotage ourselves.

The problem at its heart...

As approaching deadlines become more apparent, they get scary. We’re tied to the conveyor belt of time, pushing us into THE DEADLINE like a death contraption in an old James Bond movie.It’s only in hindsight that the scary impending-doom buzz-saw turns out to be our best friend.

Deadlines - friend or foe?

The diminishing time left in the day and the scale of the work collide at some point, and we’re forced to face reality and get to it. If we feel it has to get done today. If not, we still see time as abundant and can push The Big Important Thing off to the next day.

MIND & MACHINE Newsletter - In this Issue:The Procrastination MonsterPsychological Priming in NotionFavorite Finds