How to Stop Procrastinating
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He named his technique after a popular kitchen timer that looks like a tomato (hence the name pomodoro, which is Italian for tomato). The timer was used like any old kitchen timer, but Cirillo experimented with time blocking until he discovered the most effective usage of time blocks (for efficiency in work production).
When using the Pomodoro Technique, you:
choose a task (e.g., writing);
set a timer for 25 minutes;
work for 25 minutes without succumbing to any distractions;
take a 5-minute break by getting up and walking around;
go back to work for another 25 minutes; and
after every four time-blocks, take a 15- to 30-minute break.
You might assume that this technique is not as effective as working without breaks. But think back to those times when you tried to do a task for an extended period of time. In all likelihood, you were energized at first, then you reached a point when your concentration dropped off. Finally, you probably felt the urge to do anything besides your current task.
The Pomodoro Technique prevents these distractions because it keeps your mind fresh and focused. With the scheduled breaks, you have an opportunity to take a few minutes off to relax. Even though you’re working for less time, the quality of the content will be better than what’s normally created at the tail end of a marathon session.
If you’re interested in the Pomodoro Technique, you might want to download one of the following programs:
Team Viz (a program that syncs between your computer and mobile phone)
Pomodoro Time Management by Rapid Rabbit (iPhone and iPad apps)
Pomodoro Timer (PC users)
Pomodoro (Mac users)
Pomodoro (Android users)
When it comes to time blocking, the amount of time you choose really depends on your personal preference. I like the Pomodoro Technique because it has a nice symmetry. The 25 minutes on and 5 minutes off adds up to 30 minutes. You can schedule these 30-minute blocks throughout the day and use these sprints to complete those challenging tasks that you would normally procrastinate on.
Practice #10: Build the Discomfort Habit
One of the best strategies you can use to permanently overcome procrastination is to become comfortable being uncomfortable. Mastering this skill can allow you to do pretty much anything. You can stop procrastinating, begin that exercise regimen, eat healthier, get that degree, speak in public, and overcome specific challenges in your life.
Truthfully, most people choose to avoid being uncomfortable. Just the thought of working hard or experiencing some level of pain is the main reason they fail to change their habits.
For example, many people choose to live a sedentary life because exercising takes too much effort. It is easier to simply sit at a desk or lie on the couch all day. Now, exercise isn’t torture; it’s just something that takes some effort and a willingness to experience discomfort.
Similarly, when people try to push aside their junk food and start eating a healthy diet, they often discover that the new food on their plate is bland, unexciting, and not filling. Changing what your taste buds are used to is a bit uncomfortable, but to be honest, you can retrain your taste buds if you are willing to push through a little discomfort.
Discomfort is not a bad thing—it’s just doing something that’s not part of your normal routine. As people avoid discomfort, they pay the price of not being able to change things in their lives, not living a healthy life, and not being open to new adventures.
The important thing to remember here is that a little discomfort is healthy. It can actually turn something you perceive as dreadful into an enjoyable habit—if you’re willing to push yourself at first. So, let’s talk about how to do that.
How to Master Discomfort
If you choose to master discomfort, you can do it comfortably. While this may sound counterintuitive, it means that you do things at your own pace and a little bit at a time. If you’re nervous about being uncomfortable and try to beat your nerves with an overly grueling activity, there is a good chance that you will give up and return to what you are familiar with.
Here are five steps to success (as outlined by Leo Babauta in an article titled “Discomfort Zone: How to Master the Universe”):
Choose an easy task. Start with something small. If your goal is to increase your activity level, start with walking outside for 30 minutes a day. You already know how to walk, so this won’t add any complications to something that you already do every day. Do not worry about your pace or how far you are able to go—just walk.
Just do a little. If you don’t want to start with 30 minutes of something that you are not used to doing, start with 5 minutes. It doesn’t matter where you choose to start, just make sure that you do.
Gradually push yourself out of your comfort zone. When you want to stop, push yourself just a bit further. Begin to sit through the moments of discomfort so you can get used to the feeling and see how it comes and goes. Each time you go back and try to do something, push through one more phase of discomfort to help you gradually learn how to comfortably leave your comfort zone.
Pay attention to your discomfort. Pay attention to your thoughts as you become uncomfortable. Do you start to have negative thoughts or complain silently in your head? Do you start looking for a way out? How do your thoughts change if you stick with the discomfort and push your way through?
Smile. Learning how to smile while being uncomfortable can help you be happy with discomfort. Smiling sends a message to your brain that you are happy and everything is fine. It also sends the message to other people that you are confident in what you are doing, which will likely make you feel more comfortable as well.
Once you become comfortable with being uncomfortable, you’ll build the mental willpower to get started on a task—even when you initially feel like procrastinating.
Practicing discomfort is like building a muscle. If you work at accepting discomfort regularly, you’ll realize that getting started with any task isn’t as bad as you think. Even if you’re dreading beginning a task, challenge yourself to do it for just five minutes. You’ll probably discover that it’s not as bad as you anticipated it would be.
Practice #11: Remove Hidden Blocks with the Awareness Habit
A golden nugget that I learned from Leo Babauta’s article “Building Awareness of the Procrastination Urge” is that one of the simplest ways to beat procrastination is to build what he calls the awareness habit.
The major challenge that folks have with procrastination is they’re often unaware that they’re even doing it. That’s why a simple way to prevent it is to create a habit where you track your impulses to procrastinate.
Here are a few techniques that Babauta recommends:
Create reminders. Write notes to yourself on pieces of paper, and put them around the areas you usually procrastinate. You could even create a wallpaper message on your computer or phone, using a phrase like “Be aware!” to act as a reminder to not procrastinate on what’s important.
Use tally marks. Carry around a small notepad and a pen. Throughout the day, when you notice yourself getting the urge to procrastinate, simply put a little tally mark on the paper. These tally marks are not necessarily a good or bad thing. Instead, they act as a way for you to build awareness of your desire to procrastinate.
Log it daily. Finally, at the end of the day, you should track the awareness habit as something that you successfully completed. Like any other habit, you should track the fact that you did it throughout the day. You can even sign up on Coach.me to track the awareness habit.
Once you’ve developed the habit of asking questions about your procrastination, you can use this information to immediately address any limiting belief that you might have.
To get started, ask yourself questions like:
What reason do I have for putting off this task?
Why do I feel it’s so tough to do?
How many times have I successfully done it in the past?
What did I do then to get started?
What is the easiest step that I can do right now to get started?
Recognizing that you procrastinate on specific tasks is the best way to break this habit. When you develop the awareness habit, you’ll start to recognize the specific patterns and triggers that cause you to skip an activity. Then all you need to do is to create a plan for how you’ll respond whenever you feel the temptation to procrastinate.
Practice #12: Bundle Rewards with Actions
In a blog article titled “How to Stop Procrastinating and Boost Your Willpower by Using ‘Temptation Bundling,’” James Clear talks about a concept called temptation bundling, which comes from the work of Katy Milkman. The idea here is simple: you create a rule where you’re allowed to engage in a specific enjoyable experience only while you’re engaging in an activity that has a positive long-term impact on your life.
In his article, Clear describes examples of temptation bundling:
“Only listen to audiobooks or podcasts you love while exercising.”
“Only get a pedicure while processing overdue work emails.”
“Only watch your favorite show while ironing or doing household chores.”
“Only eat at your favorite restaurant when conducting your monthly meeting with a difficult colleague.”
It’s simple to implement the temptation bundling strategy. Just create a list with two columns:
In the first column, write down all the activities that you enjoy and find pleasure in.
In the second column, put down the tasks that you frequently procrastinate on.
You’ll find the temptation bundling is perfect for those important but not urgent Q2 tasks. These are the activities that you know you’re supposed to do but that you keep putting off because they don’t seem as urgent your day-to-day activities.
By attaching small rewards to the habits related to your long-term goals, you’ll be adding a little bit of enjoyment to the activities that often feel grueling.
Practice #13: Attach All Tasks to a Goal
It’s amazing how a shift in perspective can be enough to motivate you. Whenever you have a task that you’ve been dreading, ask yourself: “How does this relate to one of my important goals?”
Odds are you’ll realize that even the most mundane activity is related to a value you hold dear.
As an example, while I’m responsible for doing the dishes in my house, it’s not an activity that I find pleasurable. At no point in the day do I say to myself: “Ooohhh, I can’t wait to get to those dishes.”
That said, I do them happily, because this task is part of the large, really important value of building a great relationship with my wife. She likes to live in a clean, organized household. And I like to make her happy. This means that doing the dishes has become one part of the important goal of maintaining a quality marriage.
You can apply this mindset to any task that you’ve been avoiding. Simply make a list of your personal and professional responsibilities. Then connect each one to an important value or goal. And whenever you’re not in the mood to get started, remind yourself of how it relates to one of your long-term goals.
Practice #14: Create Accountability for Your Tasks
You’ve probably heard about the law of inertia (also known as Newton’s first law of motion). If you haven’t, the law states that “an object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.”
In other words, if your natural tendency is to lounge around before starting the day, then you’ll need an extra “push” to force you into action. People often procrastinate because it’s easier to do nothing than it is to push themselves to do a potentially unpleasant task.
That’s why one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned about habit development is to add accountability for every major goal.
It’s not enough to make a personal commitment. The big things in life require a solid action plan and a support network to tap into whenever you encounter an obstacle. This is true for your career trajectory and your personal development. When you have someone to cheer on your successes (or kick you in the butt when you’re slacking), you’re less likely to give up.
There are a variety of ways to be accountable, like posting your progress on social media accounts or telling the people in your life about your new routine, but I have found that there are three strategies that get the best results.
The first is to use Beeminder, which is a habit-building app on steroids. Instead of relying on self-reporting to track your habits, Beeminder syncs with a variety of apps (like Gmail, Fitbit, and RescueTime) to make sure you follow through with your commitments. If you fail to achieve a target goal, then Beeminder will charge you money. Sounds hard-core, right?
In my opinion, the best use of Beeminder is to use the location app on your cell phone when you’re at the gym and then create a “commitment contract” with Beeminder where you promise to go to this location for a specific amount of time each week. If you don’t follow through, you’ll have to pay money to Beeminder.
The second option is to use Coach.me, which is another great app for maintaining and sticking to new habits. It’s like having a coach in your pocket, for better and for worse. You’ll be held accountable for your task by adding it as a habit and checking in every single day when it’s been completed. Trust me—the simple act of knowing that you have to update people on your progress is motivation enough to stick to a habit-stacking routine.
Finally, you can work with an accountability partner with whom you share your breakthroughs, challenges, and future plans. This is a great way to get a kick in the butt whenever you feel a wane in motivation. It’s also valuable to have someone you can confide in whenever you have a challenge that requires a second opinion.
If you’re interested in finding prospective accountability partners, be sure to check out my Facebook group, HabitsGroup.com, which has over 2,000 members. Every month, we create a thread where members can connect with one another and become accountability partners.
Exercise #7: Implement 14 Daily Practices to Overcome Procrastination
Overcoming procrastination is a daily struggle that often requires you to take action—even when a specific activity is the last thing that you feel like working on. That’s why I recommend using 14 practices that will help you avoid procrastinating on the tasks you have scheduled for the day.
Practice #1: Resolve Any Potential Emergency
Resolve all potential emergencies by answering (and taking action on) a series of questions:
What is the worst-case scenario if I ignore this issue?
How would this potential emergency negatively affect my friends and family?
What are the not-so-important tasks or obligations that I can put off to take care of this potential emergency?
What simple actions can I take today to resolve this issue?
If it’s not a life-threatening issue and I don’t have time to address it today, when is the soonest I can take care of it?
Practice #2: Do a 5- to 10-Minute Daily Review
Do a 5- to 10-minute daily review to make sure you’re focusing on the right things every day:
What appointments and meetings require me to be somewhere at a set time?
Are there any emergency emails that need to be immediately addressed?
What specific tasks, which relate to the batches or blocks of time that I’ve scheduled for the day, can I complete?
Is there an appointment or activity that could take longer than expected? How will this change my schedule if it does spill ove
r into another task’s time?
What are the 80/20 tasks that will have the biggest impact on my long-term success?
How does each task relate to my quarterly S.M.A.R.T. goals?
What is the hardest, most challenging task that I’m dreading?
Practice #3: Focus On Your MITs
Start your day by completing 2–3 of your MITs. These are the activities that will have the biggest long-term impact on your career and personal life.
Practice #4: Eat the Frog
Eat the frog by completing the hardest task first, preferably the one task that you know you’re most likely to procrastinate on.
Practice #5: Use the Eisenhower Matrix to Make Quick Decisions
Use the Eisenhower Matrix to make quick decisions about every new activity that you could work on.
Practice #6: Complete Small Tasks—ASAP
Take action on small tasks by applying the Two-Minute Rule and single-handling most of your daily tasks.
Practice #7: Create a Mini Habit for Challenging Tasks
Create a mini habit for challenging tasks by setting a “lowball” goal that makes it super simple to get started.
Practice #8: Build Elephant Habits for Ongoing Projects
“Eat your elephant” by chipping away at daunting tasks in 5- to 10-minute increments every day.
Practice #9: Use Sprints to Work On Challenging Projects
Use the Pomodoro Technique to work in a series of sprints for large, ongoing projects. You will:
choose a task (e.g., writing);
set a timer for 25 minutes;
work for 25 minutes without succumbing to any distractions;
take a 5-minute break by getting up and walking around;