The first challenge in learning is sometimes just to make yourself start doing it. All discussions of learning strategies are pointless if you are not learning. But procratisnation is a prevalent problem. It feels awful and still it traps many of us from time to time.
If this is a problem that bothers you, you have probably tried many things in defense. Since you are reading this, they probably haven’t solved everything.
A Procrastinator’s Snapshot
When you procrastinate, you are doing something other than the thing you planned to do. It tends to be difficult to avoid.
You have something to do, you decided to do it. But then before you start or when halfway through, something else draws your attention away and you give up on the task.
We usually resist a bit before we procrastinate, but we give in more often than we are willing to. This is not without reasons—many forces around you can derail you from focusing.
- If the task is unpleasant or boring, it draws you away
- Sources of instant gratification (like your devices) can pull you in
- Other people can also be a source of distraction
- Random thoughts and worries occupy your attention and sometimes urge you to do something about them
- Past habits of procrastination drives you to repeat the same mistake
And no wonder so many of us fall victim to procrastination. You are fighting a tug-of-war against so many forces. In other words, you are often set up for failure from the beginning.
With that said, don’t usually just give in.
Attempts To Resist
What do we do in defense? To avoid procrastination, two common answers are motivation and self-control. If they don’t work, then more of them.
Unfortunately, motivation and self-control are not endless. For motivation, you can become insensitive if you are exposed to the same motivation for too long. For self-control, it expends glucose in your brain so you will be drained if sustain it for a long time. When these happens, you are left vulnerable to distractions.
This short period of focus is not enough, you likely need more time to get a meaningful amount of work done. Besides, autopiloting just feels awful. But what else can you do other than gathering more motivation and self-control? What else can help you win this tug-of-war?
The key is actually to avoid this tug-of-war altogether.
How To Disregard Distractions
There are things you can to largely ignore the distractions, so you don’t have to fight them.
Let’s revisit how things went wrong when we procrastinate:
(i) You have something to do, (ii) you decided to do it. (iii) But then before you start or when halfway through, something else draws your attention away and you give up on the task.
There are three things happening in sequence. From the last section, we have already seen how it can be hard to regain control in the step (iii), when you are starting to do the work. But you can actually remove a lot of trouble in step (ii), when you are just deciding to do the thing.
The secret is to describe precisely what exact you are going to do.
From Vague to Specific
When we tell ourselves to do something, we say things like ‘I am going to study for the test later’.
The problem here is that it is too vague. It doesn’t actually say what you will be doing exactly. It doesn’t say when you will do it, nor where will you do it. It doesn’t specify what tools you will use or what you need to prepare.
This creates many windows for procrastination.
- Because it doesn’t specify the time, you can choose to do it later (again and again)
- You need to take a minute to decide where to start: slides? Assignments? Books?
- Which pages? What questions? What chapter?
- You also need to decide what to do with them, read them? Take notes? Do questions?
- You may also hesitate whether you should change it midway
The vague description forces you into hesitating between choices again and again. This requires you do shift your attention from studying itself; these moments of switching are when you are the most vulnerable to distractions.
We can avoid a lot of problems if we described what we need to do precisely.
‘After dinner, I will write summaries of the lecture notes to study for the test. If I encounter something I don’t understand, I will highlight the part on the note and ask the instructor tomorrow. I should end up with a set of summaries and a list of questions to task’.
You can feel the difference. This specifies exactly what needs to be done and how. With the level of details like this, you start working right when you sit down. It almost feels automatic when you state it precise enough. Because you don’t drift away, distracions around you have less opportunities to pull you in.
Another plus with a precise description is that you are now alert whether you are on track. With a vague description like ‘I am going to study for the test later’, you can delay it indefinitely without violating it. Later can be any time. But if you state it precisely as ‘right after dinner’, you know when you are off the plan. Even in cases where you cannot follow the plan, you know you cannot just do nothing and you have to plan again.
With so many benefits, it’s quite impressive that all we did is describing what to do more precisely. It takes a minute and takes little effort.
In Practice: Write It Down
It’s hard to keep a long detailed description of tasks in your brain, so in practice you will need to write it down somewhere. If you already use to-do lists or schedulers, then you can just add detailed descriptions for the tasks. If not, you can choose a tool convenient for you, the simplest plain text note will suffice if you can’t decide.
When you are writing the description, imagine you are about to do the task. What will be your first step? What will you need? When is the time? What difficulties will you encounter? Be so detailed that you can sit down and start working right away and keep going. For tasks you are likely to drift away from, be even more detailed.
This one or two minute of planning will be decisive to how much you have to fight distractions later.