As a strategy, you may find that you have to just get started many times throughout the day, even on the same task. This is common. Even in meditation, we have to gently bring our attention back to our focal point, whatever that may be (e.g., our breath, a mantra). The thing to remember is that just getting started may happen many times in a day.
All of our procrastination gets stopped short when we just get started. It is not the whole solution by any means, but it is a huge and crucial first step. As is commonly said, “A job begun is a job half done.”
It is tempting to run away from this strategy, to criticize it because it is exactly your problem. You are not able to get started.
Not so. You think you are not able to get started, probably because you are focused on your feelings (which are negative), and you are thinking about the whole task, about “getting it done” as opposed to “getting started.” The trick is to find something that you can get started on.
Keep it really simple. Keep it as concrete as possible, too. Research by Sean McCrea (University of Konstanz) and his colleagues has shown that thinking abstractly about our goals leads us to believe that they are not that urgent or pressing. More-concrete thoughts about your goal or task, more-concrete plans, lead to more timely action. In other words, more-concrete plans will help you to just get started.
An implementation intention helps you get started. It is your predecision so that you do not get caught up in thinking, choosing, deciding. You have already made the decision. Now is the time to act.
Here is a common example from an academic context: When facing a writing task, perhaps a term paper, it is possible to just sit and stare at a blank computer screen. As you do, anxiety builds, and pretty soon you are giving in to feel good. You are away from your desk another day, and guilt is building fast.
So instead of staring at that blank screen, start typing. Start with a title page. Put your name on it. Add the title if you know it, at least something as a working title. Begin your reference page if you are still not ready to write. Begin jotting down ideas about what you would write about if you could write. You do not have to write sentences, but you can if they come. The thing is, you are now actually working on the task. It is rough, but everything begins that way, rough. Carpenters rough-frame houses. Sculptors carve and shape rough surfaces into smooth ones. Farmers disk and harrow rough, plowed fields into fields ready for planting. We are always starting somewhere to work toward the finished product.
The other way to think about this is the old saying that “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Take that first step. Just get started. It can make all the difference.
Honestly, if you are not ready to make this first step, to just get started on a day-to-day, moment-to-moment basis, then put this book down now. You are not committed to change yet, and nothing else I have to say will matter in your self-change. Don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to discourage you. I am just being honest.
I will tell you more about other strategies, the role of willpower, and even the effects of our personalities on procrastination in upcoming chapters, but you must know that it will always come down to that precipitous moment when you just get started. It will always come down to that movement from not doing to doing. For tasks that we would rather avoid, this is a difficult but wonderful moment.
So we are back to where I began the chapter, with the mantra “Just get started.” To this I have added a couple of other phrases that you might want to use as your own personal mantra. These are: “Prime the pump”; “A job begun is a job half done”; and “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
In the table that follows (or as a thought experiment), pick a task (or goal) that you are procrastinating on and that is really bothering you. Write down as many of the subtasks that you can think of that are required to get this task done. Now you might use the first column to indicate which subtask is your priority or which subtask makes the most sense for you to complete first. This is the place to just get started. However, even with this list of tasks, you may not know how to proceed. This is simply a reality, and it may not be possible to be completely rational in your approach, but you can still get started. Pick a task, any task, and let that suffice. You may even have to flail around a bit, but if you get started, at least you will find your way. Not starting will guarantee that you will remain stuck. You can take this approach for just about any goal or task that you have.
In fact, when you just cannot seem to get started on a task, get started by breaking down the task into subtasks. BUT don’t stop there, as tempting as it may be some days. It is true for many of us that after we make a list like this, we feel better and we think we have accomplished something, so we actually stop—another excuse for procrastination. Don’t forget: The purpose of that list is to get you started.
Just get started.
7
Why Getting Started Isn’t the Whole Solution
I need to be prepared to deal with distractions, obstacles, and setbacks.
HANS HAS REALLY BEEN taking his “stop procrastinating” goal to heart. Today, rather than put off work on his report as he typically has, he just got started. He was surprised at how good he felt. He even felt optimistic about the results. Then, about forty-five minutes into his work, the phone rang. Bruce, a friend Hans sees daily, was calling with an invitation to play squash. Bruce’s expected partner had canceled at the last minute, so Bruce was hoping Hans would fill in even though they had played the day before. Although Hans intended to work through the afternoon, to make up for time he’d already lost, he felt like things were under control now, so he told Bruce he would meet him at 12:30 at the gym.
Issue
In the scenario above, Hans’s goal was his report, and he made the key first step of getting started. In fact, the night before, Hans had made an implementation intention to begin his work right after he finished breakfast, and he did. He made his predecision with: “If breakfast is done, then I will immediately go to my desk and start working on the third section of my report.” Note that he had a concrete task for his action with the “third section” of the report, a section that he felt would be an easy place to begin, even though it was not the beginning of the report itself.
He felt very good about finally doing this. At the very least, there is usually a sense of relief when we get to an avoided task. Unfortunately, these good feelings can be a little bit of a trap for us. They can make us feel overly optimistic, and some of our biases in planning and thinking may begin to emerge. In fact, Hans felt his mind begin to wander, and typical thoughts emerged when he was even a little bit stuck in his progress. At one point when he hit a tough spot in the writing, he caught himself thinking, “Ah, that’s enough for today. I’ll feel more like doing this part tomorrow.” In fact, he was somewhat relieved when Bruce called. It seemed a perfect excuse to stop. Certainly, exercise is important in life, too, he thought.
What this means in terms of more successful goal pursuit is that we have to recognize other points at which we typically abandon our goal pursuit. We have to be prepared to address each of these as they arise; otherwise we will fall back into habitual ways of responding. If you tend to procrastinate more often than you like, then your habitual response will be to find some way to avoid the task at hand.
Procrastination is not just a failure to get started. We can face a variety of problems and needlessly delay action at many stages of goal pursuit. Our feelings may still threaten to derail us. Distractions abound, and it is easy to replace one intention with another, even if just for a minute. And in all of this we can find ways to justify this to ourselves.
In the scenario above, the squash invitation can be seen as an unnecessary disruption given how regularly Hans sees his friend, as well as Hans’s intention to work today. Perhaps a more common example for those of us working at our computers is becoming distracted and putting off
the task at hand by checking email or surfing the Web. I know from my own research that Internet technologies in particular are potent distracters, as “it will only take a minute to check my email,” and then hours later you find you are still off task. I discuss this in more detail in Chapter 10.
What this means is that we cannot simply depend on our goal intentions, no matter how deeply committed we might be, to keep our volitional actions on track. We have to be prepared to deal with changes in our mood related to setbacks and disappointments. We have to be prepared to deal with distractions. We have to be prepared to overcome obstacles.
Given the ongoing challenges to our goal pursuit, we would benefit from implementation intentions related to the potential distractions and obstacles ahead. We can make predecisions to help us here, too.
STRATEGIES FOR CHANGE
There are two main approaches to predecisions regarding potential distractions. The first involves reducing the number of distractions before we begin to work. The second approach takes us back to implementation intentions to help us decide ahead of time what we will do when distractions, obstacles, or setbacks arise. I outline each of these below.
Minimizing Distractions
Different things distract each of us. Some people cannot work with a radio on in the background or in a noisy room. Others, more extraverted personalities, need that background noise. This means that we have to think about what our typical distractions are.
In a world dominated by computer-related tasks and jobs, certainly some of these distractions are other activities on the computer such as games, social-networking tools, Web searches, or even just email. I discuss these potent distractions under Internet procrastination in the final chapter. For now, I would just add them to our list of potential distractions or obstacles.
The key to this strategy of minimizing distractions is to be proactive. Before you begin to work, make sure that you have removed these potential distractions. This might include: shutting your door, shutting off the ringer on the phone, shutting off your cell phone (text messaging is a chronic distraction for many people), shutting down social-networking tools (Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, whatever you use), and removing potentially distracting things from your work space (e.g., magazines, newspapers).
If you reread the paragraph above, you will note that “shutting” is a key verb. You are shutting yourself away from distractions to help maintain your attention and focus on your intended task. This is your predecision to help you work.
Of course, you cannot anticipate every distraction, obstacle, or setback in your work. For example, Hans did not expect Bruce to call with the invitation to play squash. You will need another strategy to deal with distractions as they arise. That is the purpose of implementation intentions.
Implementation Intentions
Implementation intentions can work to shield our intentions from competing possibilities, as they can take the form of “if . . . then” statements that anticipate distractions. In fact, experimental research by Peter Gollwitzer and his colleagues has shown that participants who formed temptation-inhibiting implementation intentions outperformed the groups who did not. Importantly, this effect was independent of the participants’ motivation to achieve the goal and to ignore distractions.
Implementation intentions have effects over and above our motivation to succeed. This is important. Commitment and motivation alone will not always get us through.
It is time to think about your main procrastinated task(s) again. In the table that follows (or as a thought experiment), list the kinds of distractions and obstacles that have resulted in further procrastination even when you have actually been working on the task. For each of these, note whether you can remove it prior to task engagement, and/or add an implementation intention as your predecision about how you will act when it arises in the future.
8
Willpower, Willpower: If We Only Had the Willpower
Willpower is a limited resource that I need to use strategically.
RACHEL’S EXERCISE GOAL WASN’T becoming a reality. Given her very early start each day to get the kids off to school and out to work herself, she put aside time after dinner to get on the treadmill. However, after an exhausting day in her law firm along with the day-to-day challenges of orchestrating school, day-care schedules, and the many household chores she shares with her husband, she couldn’t seem to muster the “get up and go” to get up and go. She was frustrated. She just didn’t seem to have the willpower to get off the couch. Every night she put it off again, hoping tomorrow would be different.
Issue
Willpower is a limited resource. I think many of us know this from experience. Roy Baumeister (Florida State University), as well as his students and colleagues, have demonstrated this in a series of clever experiments. It is worth reviewing these to make the point.
In the typical experiment, research participants are randomly assigned to one of two groups. Both groups expect that they will participate in two tasks, but there is an important difference between the groups in terms of the self-regulation demanded of them in the first task.
In the first task, the participants in the experimental group are required to self-regulate a great deal, whereas the participants in the control group are simply asked to do the task. For example, participants in both groups may be asked to watch a funny film, but the participants in the experimental group would be required to self-regulate by suppressing their emotional expression, while the participants assigned to the control group would be given no specific instructions about how to react. In a similar study, participants in both groups arrive hungry, but the experimental group is invited to eat radishes while resisting a tempting plate of cookies, whereas the control group is allowed to eat the cookies or the radishes (you guess which is more popular). In each of these experiments, the participants in the experimental group exercise self-regulation while the participants in the control group do not.
Once this first task is completed, both groups are asked to complete a second task that involves self-regulation. Participants in both groups need to self-regulate their behavior to achieve success, and the key outcome measure is how persistent participants in each group are. For example, typical second tasks include things like complex figure tracing, solving complex anagrams, drinking an unpleasant (but not harmful) “sports drink,” and, my favorite, resisting drinking free beer (a driving test is expected to follow). The main idea is that this second task requires self-regulation, and the hypothesis is that the participants in the experimental group will perform more poorly (not persist as long) because they have already exhausted their ability to self-regulate.
The findings of these studies consistently demonstrate that the participants in the experimental group perform at a lower level than the control group. Given the difference in the self-regulatory demands of the first task, the researchers conclude that the participants in the experimental group have exhausted their self-regulatory strength, at least temporarily, and therefore are unable to muster the self-regulation required for the second task.
In a practical real-life example of this, one study showed that after coping with a stressful day at work, people were less likely to exercise and more likely to do something more passive like watching television. This takes us back to where we began, with Rachel. No wonder she cannot muster the “get up and go” to exercise. She has exhausted her willpower.
STRENGTHENING OUR WILLPOWER—THE ROLE OF MOTIVATION
The self-regulatory impairments I discussed in the research above are eliminated or reduced when participants are highly motivated to self-regulate on the second task. For example, when participants are paid for doing well on the second task or they are convinced that their performance will have social benefits, they perform well despite the apparent self-regulatory exhaustion from the first task.
The key thing about these findings is that they indicate that self-regulatory dep
letion may be reducing motivation. Given that depleted self-regulatory strength may leave us feeling like we won’t succeed, “we’re too tired to try,” it may be that the reduced expectancy of success undermines our willingness to exert effort. It’s not that we are so impaired that we cannot respond. It’s that we “don’t feel like it.”
Sound familiar? “I’ll feel more like it tomorrow.” This is a common phrase we use to rationalize our procrastination. Perhaps it simply captures our perceptions of self-regulatory strength at the moment. Of course, it is a perception and, I argue, at least partly an illusion. It’s about our motivation to muster the self-regulatory effort—unwilling perhaps, not unable.
From this perspective, what we see is that we may fail to self-regulate because we acquiesce. In the case of procrastination, we find resisting the urge to do something else (an alternative intention) impossible to resist, so we give up and give in.
STRATEGIES FOR CHANGE
We all feel depleted throughout the day. We all have moments where we think, “I’m exhausted and I just can’t do any more” or “I’ll feel more like this tomorrow.” This is true; this is how we are feeling at the moment. However, successful goal pursuit often depends on our moving past these momentary feelings of depletion.
Given the role of motivation in self-regulatory failure, it is crucial to acknowledge the role of higher-order thought in this process, particularly the ability to transcend the feelings at the moment in order to focus on our overall goals and values. In the absence of cues to signal the need for self-regulation, we may give in to feel good, and stop trying.
It is exactly when we say to ourselves “I’ll feel more like it tomorrow” that we have to stop, take a breath, and think about why we intended to do the task today. Why is it important to us? What benefit is there in making the effort now? How will this help us achieve our goal?
Solving the Procrastination Puzzle Page 5