Why procrastinators procrastinate
Inside our minds there is a rational decision maker, who is a good planner and cares about our future. The rational decision maker knows what needs to be done to maximize happiness in the long term and make us be successful in our dreams and aspirations.
The instant gratification monkey also lives in the mind. It often goes against the rational decision maker, especially in the mind of an avid procrastinator. His favorite activity is to find the easiest, lowest stakes activity it can to help maximize pleasure in the present moment.
Sometimes a third character appears in the mind: the panic monster. Typically accompanied by a looming deadline or the threat of social disgrace, the panic monster drives the procrastinator to jump into action and sprint through the task at hand.
It's not good for a procrastinator to rely on the panic monster:
- It doesn't feel good
- It wastes time that could be spent on well earned leisure
- It doesn't lead to greatness, tending towards half assed results
- It will prevent important but not urgent tasks from ever being completed
How to beat procrastination
Before starting a task, a procrastinator is in the dark playground - a place where leisure and relaxing feels guilty.
To get to the happy playground, a procrastinator needs to wade through the dark forest - which represents the task at hand.
Getting started with the task is the hardest part, and where the instant gratification monkey puts up the most resistance. This is where you need to be the strongest.
After a while, if you keep breaking through the dark forest, a tipping point is reached: the monkey can now see the end of the task, and wants to go to the happy playground more than it wants to go back to the dark playground. It starts pulling you along the dark forest. You are now working together as a team, and it feels great.
You need to show yourself you can go through the dark forest - telling yourself you can isn't enough.
Finding a way to make a goal public so that people hold you accountable is a good way to make yourself take the first step into the dark forest. Schedule a show, or announce a release - public commitments will keep the panic monster on his toes.
The procrastination matrix
Behold the Eisenhower matrix:
Urgent Not Urgent
Important 1 2
Not important 3 4
The original idea is that for a given task, depending on which quadrant it belongs to, one should:
- Do now
- Decide when to do
- Delegate
- Delete
But a procrastinator has trouble following this, because they are not Dwight fucking Eisenhower.
A procrastinator will spend a lot of time in quadrant 4, which is the dark playground. Sometimes they will jump into quadrant 3 and be busy for a while, which only feels productive but is not real progress towards one's goals. These are meetings, planning, organizing schedules, and everything that isn't actually doing the things.
Be honest with yourself about what is and isn't urgent and/or important. It is important to clear delusion and be aware.
If one googles how to beat procrastination, there is unlimited advice to be found. But however much a procrastinator wants to believe they are sane, they cannot do things just because they understand they are the right things to do. Before a procrastinator can act on good advice, they need to have control.
The only way a procrastinator can take control of their actions is by breaking the self fulfilling prophecy of procrastination and changing their life story, which leaves us with a chicken-or-the-egg situation.
Figuring out the starting point of this chicken and egg paradox is each procrastinator’s personal quest. But a universal starting point is to try to remain aware as much as possible.
The monkey thrives off of unconsciousness. Simply by noticing it, one can start to balance the needle of action away from its default and into real happiness and productivity.