We all have procrastinated at one point or another in life and some of us happen to procrastinate more than others. If this sounds familiar, then you might want to dive deeper into the realms of procrastination and even understand the science behind it before we jump to the cure.
Understanding the Science Behind Motivation
If you look at motivation, you see that it equals expectancy and the value that one is to gain from a certain task. However, this expectancy and value is divided by impulsiveness and delay. This aspect indicates that motivation is the willingness to do work, which is the exact opposite of procrastination.
As motivation equals expectancy, expectancy here is all about how you anticipate to be successful at a task and thereby get the much-anticipated reward. In simpler words, the more you expect to be successful at something, the less likely you are to procrastinate.
Motivation is also about value, which essentially refers to how much you enjoy the task and how much you will enjoy the following reward. The more value you derive from any given task or subsequent reward, the more likely you are to get straight to work.
Since value and expectancy are divided by impulsiveness and delay, you should know that impulsiveness is your tendency to get distracted by other things. If you score higher in impulsivity, the more you are distracted from the given task, such as the more you spend time on social media instead of doing the work that you are supposed to do. Delay refers to the time laps until you receive the reward.
The longer the delay, the more likely you are going to procrastinate, as you believe that the task is something that you can take care of later.
Now, you understand that you want to optimize expectancy and value, as these two aspects are directly proportional to motivation. Simultaneously, you want to minimize impulsiveness and delay, as these aspects are inversely proportional to motivation.
Break the Task into Smaller Steps
When faced with any task, such as studying for an exam, completing a project, or writing a book, you should break it down into smaller steps. This will increase the expectancy level in the procrastination equation, as smaller tasks are much easier than bigger tasks.
For instance, you might want to write a book. You might have a brilliant story or idea that you want to share with the world, and you hire a book coach to help you turn your book idea into a reality. However, when you finally sit down to work on your book, you might fall into the trap of procrastination and waste your time doing nothing where the underlying reason could be that you haven’t defined the chapters that you want to include in your book.
Writing a book in itself is a big project, which is why you will want to make things easier on yourself and start with outlining the book. The outline will provide you with the much-needed roadmap where you will break the entire project into smaller milestones and focus on one milestone at a time.
You might also want to be highly specific with timelines, as this will help eliminate procrastination to a great extent. If you have several tasks at hand, you can benefit from a highly structured daily and weekly timeline. However, you will want to figure out what works best for you and then stick to the structure.
Set the Bar Low
Another tip to beat procrastination and do what you are supposed to do is to set the bar low. This trick allows you to set an expectancy level that will keep you motivated. So, you will want to set the goal to something less than what you are actually capable of.
For instance, if you set yourself to meditating at least twenty minutes a day, you might only do this successfully for a few days a week as you might feel like you don’t have the time to sit down and perform the 20 minutes of meditation. Instead of aiming for the 20-minute meditation project, you will want to lower the bar and aim to meditate for three minutes every day.
By setting the bar low, you will actually complete the task and work on it every day. So, by setting the bar low, you are certainly going to work on the task every day and also exceed your own expectations. Suppose you are working on a particularly boring task. In that case, you can increase the value levels by rewarding yourself after its completion, which can be something as simple as enjoying a healthy meal or hanging out with friends.
Alternatively, you can also work on improving the experience of the task itself. For instance, if you are working on a book, you might want to set up a pleasant atmosphere and have the right things at your desk so that you can actually look forward to your writing.
Start and Keep the Task Small
The hardest part of anything is often starting the work. Once you are in the momentum, you are more likely to stay in the momentum. You might be familiar with the Pomodoro technique, which is a perfect attention remedy for procrastinators and perfectionistic of all sorts.
According to this technique, you set your time to work for 25-minute blocks, where a five-minute break separates each of these blocks. During the 25-minute blocks, you are supposed to focus on just one small task. For instance, if you sit down to work on any specific task and tell yourself that you need to work on the specific task for five hours, you will definitely get easily distracted.
But – if instead of the five hours, you tell yourself to work on any given task for 25 minutes while keeping the task small, as we mentioned earlier, you are supposed to break the bigger task into smaller steps – the task becomes far less daunting, and it also gets so much easier to not only get started but also focused on the task for the set time of 25 minutes.