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Table of Contents

................................
Introduction
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. .. .. .. .. .. ... . . . . . . . .
4 “This

. ...................................
Needs to Stop”

.. ....... .. .. ......... .. .....................

7 How This Book

10 Chapter
Is Organized

1: Know Thy

Enemy — How Procrastination Works and

Why You Can’t Stop 12 Chapter 2:

Awareness — The First Step Toward

.... .. ..... .. ....... .. ..... .. ....... ..

Change and Why You’re Ahead of 99
Percent of Your Fellow Procrastinators

20 Chapter 3: The

Paradox

Problem

What
of Getting

Is the Cure

Productivity
........
Started

Gurus Won’t
— Why

27 Chapter

Tell
the

You
4:

...................................
About Procrastination — Why Time
Management Is Only Part of the Solution

39 Chapter 5: The Magic of a Simple Plan —

.... .. ..... .. ....... .. ..... .. ....... .. . . . .
How to Program Your Unconscious Mind to
Automatically Procrastinate Less

46 Chapter 6:

Carrots

School…

Chapter
&

7:
Sticks

Why
—

But They Work!

Your
They

Granny
.........
May Be Old

Doesn’t
53

Procrastinate — The Alarming Link Between

...............................
Technology, Distractions, and
Procrastination
59

Chapter 8: The Power of Nice — Why

.. ......... .. .. ......... .. .. ........... .. ................

Self-Criticism Won’t Get You Anywhere and

What to Do Instead

69 Chapter 9:

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .. ....... ...
The Art of Emotion Surfing — How to Do

................................
What Needs to Get Done… No
Matter What.
79

Chapter 10: The Science of Willpower —

 ................................ . . .
Why It’s the Secret to Overcoming
Procrastination and Living a Healthy, Happy,
and Successful Life 91

. ............... ............................. .. .. .. .. .. ...

Final Thoughts

. ........................ .. .. .. .. .. ....................
110 Thank You

. .................................
114 About

15
the Author

(not sexy)

INTRODUCTION
Let me guess: You’re the kind of
person who sincerely wants to

become more productive and

disciplined, exercise regularly, eat
healthy, wake up early, and finish
tasks and projects on time.

But for whatever reason, you just

can’t seem to make these things

happen. You struggle to follow through

on your goals by successfully putting
your intentions into practice.
Paradoxically, you’re unable to force
yourself to do the very things you’re
sure you want to do.

Certain activities, for reasons you

don’t understand, feel too

uncomfortable to pursue — indeed,

you shudder just thinking about them.
And so you end up wasting massive
amounts of time watching TV, playing
video games, dillydallying on social
media, or otherwise distracting
yourself.

Then once you snap out of your

distraction, you feel terribly guilty

about how you’ve spent the last couple

of hours. You respond by harshly
criticizing yourself, which further adds
to your misery and causes you to
drown yourself in even more
distractions.

Does this sound anything like you?

Good! You’re in the right place.

You’re a procrastinator, and you’re

here because you’re looking for a
solution to end your struggles. You’re
here because procrastination is
causing massive pain in your life and
you’ve about had enough.
Maybe it’s the constant guilt that’s
suffocating you. Maybe it’s the

building stress or anxiety. Maybe it’s

the relentless self-criticism. Or maybe
it’s the never-ending background
feelings of misery, disappointment,
and unhappiness that are weighing
you down.

These sensations of shame,

disappointment, and lack of fulfillment

lead you to question whether you'll

ever be truly happy, especially since
you know deep inside that you’re
wasting your potential day in and day
The funny thing about
procrastinators is that they know how
capable they truly are — how much
potential they have to make
meaningful and transformative
changes to their lives — even as they
continue to struggle with transitioning
from thinking to doing. You know
what you’ve got inside you. You know
you could achieve great feats in life
and make big things happen. Armed
with this self-knowledge and insight,
the fact that you can’t seem to actually
make those positive changes
damages your self-esteem and
detracts from your happiness.

Consequently, the procrastinator’s life

tends to be characterized by missed
opportunities, wasted potential, fear,
shame, guilt, and disappointment.

And if you think things are bad right

now, consider all your future regrets
of not living up to your potential,
putting forth enough effort, or even
caring adequately for your mental
and/or physical well-being. You're
likely to experience significant pain
and disappointment that won't
dissipate until you get a handle on the
situation

Procrastination is sometimes called

“the thief of time.” But it’s much more
than that, isn’t it? Not only is it the
thief of time, but it's also the
perpetrator of evil, the killer of dreams,
and the creator of endless problems.

And if you’re reading this book, you

probably already know all that. You’re
perfectly familiar with all the negative
consequences of procrastination,
aren’t you? Heck, you’re probably
procrastinating right now by reading
this book instead of doing something
you know you should be doing, but is
too uncomfortable to pursue.

If procrastination is such a painful

condition, why don’t we stop doing it?
Why can’t we just do the things we
know we need to get done? Why do
we keep delaying action? And what
can we do to break free of
procrastination’s grip and finally get
some real work done?

If you’re interested answers to

in the
these questions, you’re probably in a
situation similar to the one in which I
spent most of my life. Up until two
years ago, I was the worst
procrastinator imaginable. I had zero
self-discipline. I couldn’t get anything

significant outside pressure. And I

was suffering the consequences living
as a procrastinator day in and day
out.

Since that time, I’ve gone through a

remarkable transformation, which I’m
going to use to teach you which
specific tools and tactics you can use
to finally overcome your tendency to
procrastinate. This book presents a
concise, yet detailed summary of the
key lessons I’ve learned over the last
few years fighting my own battles
against procrastination. You’re going
to learn exactly how procrastination
works, why you do it, and why you
can’t seem to stop. Most importantly,
you’re going to discover the most
potent tools to stop delaying and start
getting things done.

These strategies you

will work for
whether you’re a failing student, a
successful business person, a
stay-at-home mom, an aspiring
entrepreneur, or a “lost cause” with
little hope of improvement.

I promise that if you follow the tactics

outlined in this book, you’ll immediately
experience a significant decline in
your day-to-day procrastination. You’ll
be able to start on tasks earlier, get
things done on time, and feel a whole
lot better about yourself in the
process.
Will this book completely eliminate
your tendency to procrastinate? Of
course not. What you can expect,
however, is to procrastinate a lot less.
Even better, you’ll no longer feel so
terribly guilty about it, beat yourself up
over it, or get super stressed about it.
And as an additional bonus, you’ll be
able to enjoy your leisure time without
constantly feeling like you should be
working.

Sound fair? Let’s get to it!

“THIS NEEDS

TO STOP”
A little over two years ago, I moved
out of my parents’ home and into a
new apartment with my brother Jonas.

I had just quit university to give this

online marketing thing a real shot (I’d
started doing internet marketing a few
years back and was earning enough to
live comfortably). My brother, with
whom I’m running a website called
NJlifehacks.com, was working
part-time in a fitness center. He would
often work late shifts and get home
after 10 p.m., which meant I spent a
fair amount of time alone in the
apartment.

It was during that time that I became

truly aware of the pain procrastination
was causingme. Usually when we
procrastinate, we don’t realize the
extent to which guilt, anxiety,
frustration, and other negative
emotions are bubbling up inside of us.
Most of us just keep distracting
ourselves to numb those
uncomfortable feelings. But if you’re
all by yourself, things look different.

For starters, there was the anxiety

and resistance I felt when facing
certain tasks. I’d get up in the morning
with a clear plan to perform my
morning ritual and then start working
on my business. Even just following
through with my morning ritual was
ridiculously hard. For whatever
reason, I could barely get myself to
meditate for 10 minutes — it felt so,
for lack of a better word,
uncomfortable.

If I was lucky, I’d manage to follow

through with the morning ritual, but

then the hard part was still ahead of

me. Now I had to start writing articles
or do some other dreaded task for the
business. I felt so much resistance I
can’t even describe it.

Sometimes I managed to follow

through with my plans and sometimes

I didn’t. No matter what, it was always

super challenging. And if I didn’t do
what needed to get done? OMG,
that’s when it got really bad. Because
that’s when the guilt and harsh
self-criticism kicked in.
You see, when I couldn’t get myself to
do what I had intended to do, I
distracted myself by watching TV,
playing video games, or watching
some dumb YouTube videos. During
the distraction itself, I felt okay. But
the moment I turned off the TV, laptop,
smartphone, or whatever… I was in
for a real mental beating.

“Why can’t I get this right? Why can’t

I just sit down and do the things I
should do? Why am I so terrible at
this? Why am I so unproductive? And
undisciplined? Why? Why? Why?!”

It was ugly.

And so there I was, drowning in a

cocktail of guilt, fear, frustration, and
despair. I knew exactly how it worked.
If I did the things I was supposed to do,
I felt good and everything was fine.
But if I didn’t find the strength to do
these things, I ended up feeling guilty,
disappointed, and like a complete failu
re.

Was I supposed to live like this for the

rest of my life — constantly in fear of
what would happen if I
procrastinated? Constantly engaged
in a battle of wanting to do the right
thing, but being pulled in all kinds of
other directions?

If you’re a chronic procrastinator, you

probably know exactly how that feels.
Needless to say, this was one of the
hardest periods of my life. Sometimes
it got so bad that I was literally crying
in my bed, not knowing if I would ever
get a handle on this.

The good news is that I indeed got a

handle on this, otherwise you wouldn’t
be reading this book right now.

So, what happened? Pretty soon after

moving into the new apartment, I came
to a point when enough was enough
and I said to myself, “This needs to
stop. I am tired of this bullshit. I will
figure out this procrastination thing,
even if I go crazy doing it!”

I ordered a bunch of books on

procrastination from Amazon and

began my path of recovery. Over the

course of a couple of months, I read
implemented information from
many of them: Eat That Frog, The
Procrastination Equation, Solving The
Procrastination Puzzle, Getting Things
Done, The Now Habit, and so on.

Slowly, I started implementing,

developing, and refining the strategies
you’re about to learn in this book. I
experienced lots of setbacks along
the way, but today I’m at a point I
could never have imagined a year or
two ago.

I can easily get up early every

morning. I take cold showers,

meditate, and exercise every day. I

can get things done whether I feel like
it or not. I feel like I’m calling the shots.
I feel powerful, and most importantly, I
feel like I’m in full control of my life.
Don’t get me wrong, I still
procrastinate at times, and sometimes

I’m still lazy, and other times, I feel like

garbage. But it’s not nearly as bad
anymore. I don’t experience the crazy
amount of guilt, anxiety, fear, or
despair the way I used to. It’s all
much more manageable.

Now, why am I telling you all of this?

I want to show you that it’s possible to

overcome procrastination. No matter
where you are right now, no matter
how hopeless you feel, no matter how
crazy your level of procrastination is,
there is a way to get better at this.
There is a way to procrastinate less,
get more things done, and feel in
control of your life.

And that is what you’ll learn in this

HOW THIS
BOOK IS
ORGANIZED
First of all, I’ve tried to keep this book

as short as possible.

The last thing I want is to put a

gigantic and overwhelming book into
the hands of a procrastinator. It’s like
handing a loaded gun to a suicidal
person — it’s just not the right thing to
do. With that being said, I feel I’ve only
succeeded partially with this goal. The
book came out longer than I hoped,
though I’ll let you be the judge of that.

Another thing I wanted to do with the

book was to provide a good mix
between theory and practical
strategies.

The theory is useful because merely

knowing how something works is
oftentimes enough to facilitate
change. E.g., once you know that fruit
juices are as unhealthy as soft drinks,
it’s easy to make the change to stop
consuming them (assuming you care
about your health).

As far as the practical strategies go,

I’ve tried to include as many as
possible while still keeping things
short. I did this for the simple reason
that what works for one person might
not work for another. Please don’t feel
like you need to make use of all the
strategies. Pick what you find useful
and leave out the rest.

Since most chapters are a mix of

theory and strategies, I’ve put the

prefix “TRY THIS” in front of the

practical interventions. This helps to
better separate the two and makes the
information more easily absorbable.

One last thing I want to address is

that I’ve repeated certain ideas
throughout the book. This isn’t to bore
you; rather, it’s to help you learn these
ideas by heart. As you’ve probably
heard thousands of times in school,
repetition is the mother of learning.

The book is roughly divided into three

parts.

Chapter 1is meant to give you an

overview of procrastination. It’s all
about how procrastination works and
describes why so many of us fallprey
to this dreadful habit. It will help you
better understand your own behavior
and explain why you act the way you
do. Understanding the basics of
procrastination can in and of itself be
incredibly helpful in facilitating change.

Chapters 2-9 will each explain a key

topic regarding procrastination. Each
chapter will give you some theory and
one or more specific strategies that
you can start implementing and
reaping rewards from immediately. At
the end of these chapters, as well as
at the end of chapter 10, you’ll find a
short summary in which the main
point is restated and the
aforementioned tactics listed.

Chapter 10 is all about the science of

willpower. Because procrastination is
ultimately a willpower issue, it makes
sense to dive deeper into this topic.
The practical interventions presented
in this chapter are somewhat different
from the strategies in chapters 2-9.
They are long-term strategies. Not
Band-Aids, but cures. Seemingly
ineffective in the beginning, once
applied for a while, their compounding
benefits will make all the difference in
the world.

Lastly, if any questions come up as

you’re reading through the book, feel
free to shoot me an email at
nils@njlifehacks.com. I’ll get back to
you as soon as possible.

And now, let’s get started!

KNOW THY
ENEMY —

HOW
PROCRASTINATION
WORKS AND

WHY YOU
CAN’T STOP
What exactly is procrastination,

anyway?

How does it work?

Why do we do it?

The first question is the easiest to

answer, so we won’t spend a lot of

time with it. Procrastination is the act

of delaying or putting off something
that should be done. The crucial
ingredient in procrastination is that the
delay is irrational. We know delaying a
specific task isn’t good for us, but we
do it anyway.
The harder question to answer is why

we do it. Why do we put off doing

something that would obviously be in
our best interest?

Why do we put off exercising when

it’s obviously good for us? Why do we

delay studying when it’s obviously
what we should be doing? Why do we
put off doing the taxes until we get
multiple warnings and need to pay a fi
ne?

(Hint: It’s because there’s a part of us

that does not want to do these things.)
I’ve struggled a lot with how to best
answer this question. For this book,
I’ve come up with an analogy that I
believe makes sense. I’ve actually
stolen it from Tim Urban’s TED Talk —
credit where credit is due.

The analogy may sound weird in the

beginning, but bear with me. At the
end of this chapter, it will all make
sense and you’ll hopefully be able to
recognize your own behavior in what
I’m describing here. And don’t worry if
you can’t fully identify with the
analogy or my overall explanation.
The upcoming chapters will provide
countless strategies that will work for
you, whether you agree with my
explanation or not.

With that being said, let’s get into it.

According to our little analogy, the

reason you procrastinate is because
there’s a monkey running the show in
your brain.
Just like Homer, you too have a little

monkey in your brain.

(Caption should be on same page as

image.)

It’s not a real monkey, of course.

It’smore like a second personality of

yours — a personality that resembles
the behavior of a monkey.

This monkey operates on the basic

guiding principle: avoid what feels

bad, approach what feels good. Its

primary aim is to feel good right now
and to maximize immediate
gratification.
The trouble occurs when what you
(the rational part of you) want to do
doesn’t line up with what the monkey
wants to do.

You want to study for an upcoming

exam, meditate, exercise, or work on
an important project. The monkey,
however, has no interest in doing
these things. None of them sound
remotely fun or enjoyable. Heck, they
sound boring, hard, and effortful — not
exactly what a pleasure-seeking
creature is looking for.

And so, if you think about doing any

of these hard things, the monkey

starts revolting.

“Let’s watch TV instead,” it will say.

“You can study tomorrow!” “Meditation
is for monks. Don’t kid yourself.”
“You’ll feel more like doing it later.”
“Eat something first. You need some
energy.”

You’re faced with a decision between

what you want and what the monkey
wants, between immediate
gratification and long-term success.

If you listen to the monkey, that’s

called procrastination. You put off

doing what’s best for you for

something that feels better in the
If you don’t listen to the
monkey, that’s an act of willpower.
You use the strength of your will to
veto the monkey. You forego the
pleasures of the moment for potential
benefits in the future.

That’s a nutshell —
procrastination in
a battle of impulse versus willpower,
emotion versus reason, automatic
versus controlled, experiential versus
rational, and short-term pleasure
versus long-term happiness.

It’s a battle between your rational self

and your monkey self, between the
part of you who wants to be healthy
and the part of you who wants to eat
candy all day long.

If you’re a procrastinator, it simply

means you’re losing this battle too

often.

It means your monkey is in charge

most of the time, guiding your
behavior away from what feels bad
and toward something that makes you
feel good in the moment.

The good news is you’ll learn exactly

how to win this battle more often in this
book.

But first, let’s dive a little deeper into

how procrastination works.

When Emotions Get in

Your Way
Procrastination has everything to do

with emotions.

Think about the last time you delayed

something that you knew needed to
get done. Did you experience any of
the following thoughts running
through your mind?

• “I don’t feel like it.”

• “I’ll feel more like doing it

tomorrow.” • “I

really don’t want to do this right now.” •

This
resistance is coming from the
monkey’s desire to avoid what feels
bad, and to avoid negative emotions.

The tasks you procrastinate on

always inspire negative feelings in

you — dread, anxiety, frustration,

boredom, and annoyance. Every time
you experience negative feelings, the
monkey shows up, urging you to
mitigate these feelings.

And what’s an easy way to mitigate

these feelings? Just put off the task.

Phew, what a relief! Now that you’re

not faced with the unpleasant task, you
feel better.

But for how long? This relief, as I’m

sure you know, is usually short-lived.
Sooner or later, any initial act of
procrastination comes back to haunt
you.

A great example of this is what I call

the classic procrastination-guilt-
procrastination loop. You don’t feel
like doing the thing you should be
doing and, in the hope of improving
your mood, decide to engage in
something more fun. You check your
email, scroll through your Facebook
feed, maybe watch some YouTube
videos. 30 minutes later, you realize
you’ve been procrastinating for no
good reason. Worse yet, you still
don’t feel like doing the thing. And on
top of that, you feel guilty for having
wasted so much time. Now you’re
experiencing even more negative
emotions and your mood is even
worse than it was in the beginning.
This means you feel an even stronger
urge to run away, making it ever more
likely that you’ll keep procrastinating.

In short, the initial act of

procrastination leads to guilt (and
other negative emotions like
disappointment and shame), which
leads to more procrastination, which
makes you feel even worse, which
leads to even more procrastination,
and so on.

Once you’re in that loop, it’s incredibly

hard to get out. (Believe me, I should
know. I literally spent days and weeks
in that loop, unable to get out.)
Not only is the task you’re trying to
accomplish associated with negative
emotions, but the initial act of delay
piles even more negative emotions on
top of those, making the monkey
increasingly irritated. In that state, it’s
almost impossible to resist the
monkey’s pull away from the
uncomfortable feelings and toward
immediate gratification and short-term
mood repair.

That’s another way of defining

procrastination: as a short-term mood

repair strategy. We can’t handle our

negative emotions and give in to
feeling good. And while this works in
the short-term, it makes things 10x
worse in the long-term.

If we want any chance of overcoming

procrastination, we need to get better
at handling our emotions and
impulses. Many strategies in this book
will help you do so.

Before we get to the actual strategies,

however, there’s one last thing I want
to address…
Are Procrastinators Just
Lazy?
For most of my life, I was the kind of

guy who bragged about my

procrastination.

At university, for example, I could

never get myself to study until about
two weeks before exams — I just
couldn’t stop procrastinating. But
that’s not what I was telling my friends.
Instead, the reason I gave them was
that I just didn’t care. I portrayed
myself as the cool kid who just didn’t
give a fuck about anything.

It’s this type of behavior that makes

people think procrastinators are just
lazy and careless when in fact, the
opposite is true: procrastinators care
way too much.

Procrastinators, whether they are

aware of it or not, are constantly

worrying that…

• …what they do isn’t good enough

• …people will “find out the truth”

about them

• …people will find out that they

aren’t as competent as believed •

…they might get ridiculed

• …they are inadequate

• …and so on (try all bullets on

same page)
Procrastination usually stems from
some form of fear — fear of failure,

fear of success, fear of the unknown,

fear of judgment, fear of disapproval.

It’s much easier to procrastinate than

it is to write a book and risk that people
might not like it. It’s much easier to
procrastinate than it is to start a
business and risk failing.

Whatever the exact patterns are,

procrastinators tend to worry a lot.

They experience more negative

emotions when facing certain tasks
than “normal” people. As a result, they
also need more willpower and better
emotion regulation skills than normal
people do.
Unfortunately, most procrastinators
never learn any willpower or emotion
regulation skills. The only coping
mechanism most of us develop is
procrastination: just put off the task;
this will mitigate the negative feelings
for a while.

After using this strategy for a while,

procrastination becomes a habit. And
habits are hard to break.

So, most procrastinators aren’t lazy or

careless. They have deep emotional
issues that require strong willpower
and well-developed emotion
regulation skills — two things that the
average procrastinator doesn’t have.
Now, here’s the thing: I don’t know
how to solve these emotional issues

for you, and we’re not going to dive

deeper into these issues in this book.
Instead, we’re going to learn how to
act and get things done in spite of
those issues.

That’s what worked for me, and I’m

Let’s get to it!

AWARENESS
— THE FIRST
STEP TOWARD
CHANGE AND
WHY YOU’RE
AHEAD OF 99
PERCENT OF

YOUR FELLOW
PROCRASTINATORS
The first step toward any serious and

lasting change is awareness. Without

awareness, change is at best

luck-based or incidental. Think about

it: If you’re not aware of what’s going
wrong in your life, how are you going
to fix it? If you don’t realize how,
when, where, and why you
procrastinate, how are you going to
prevent it?

Without awareness, you wouldn’t be

reading this book.

After all, you wouldn’t be aware of the

fact that you’re a procrastinator, and

you certainly wouldn’t be aware of the
fact that procrastination is a serious
problem you need to be working on.

So, kudos to you. Unlike most of your

fellow procrastinators, who have no
clue what’s going on in their lives,
you’ve already realized that this is an
aspect of yourself that you need to be
working on.
Even better, you took action toward

fixing this issue by buying and reading

this book. And who knows what else
The sad truth is
that 99% of people out there will
never even realize that they
procrastinate, let alone take the
necessary steps to overcome it.

You’re already way ahead of the

game.

And if you keep reading and start

implementing the strategies in this

book, you’ll slowly but surely weaken

the impact procrastination has on
your life. Along the way, you’ll improve
your productivity and become a
healthier, happier, and more
successful person.

A good way to illustrate the

relationship between change and

awareness is to consider a smoker

who’s trying to quit.

He needs to recognize that smoking is

doing considerable harm to his health
and make the conscious decision to
quit. He needs to recognize the first
sign of a craving and find a way to
resist the temptation. He needs to see
that if he gives in to the craving this
time, he’s more likely to smoke again
next time. He needs to realize that
he’s most likely to smoke when he’s
drinking, and prepare his willpower
beforehand.

The more awareness he has about

his triggers for smoking, the better

he’ll fare.

Without awareness, he’d have no

chance whatsoever. He’d be running

on complete autopilot, following the

monkey’s impulses and urges without
even realizing it. He’d fail at all of his
attempts to quit and keep smoking for
the rest of his life without ever having
a clue of what went wrong.

It’s the same with procrastination. We

need to be aware of what’s going on.
Only then do we get the chance to
change anything.
If you don’t realize that the act of
procrastination will always lead to
more procrastination you
in the future,
will keep running into trouble. If you
don’t see that you’ll never “feel more
like it tomorrow,” you’ll always
rationalize your decision to delay. If
you don’t recognize that distractions
are a major reason for your
procrastination, you won’t get rid of
The more awareness you have
about the details of your
procrastination, the better equipped
you’ll be to change. I would go as far
as saying that the more awareness
you have, the less you’ll
procrastinate.

You see, awareness is oftentimes

enough. Once we see what’s going
on, we almost automatically do the
right things.

Now, here’s the funny and challenging

thing about awareness: We think we’re
good at it, but we’re actually terrible at
it.

Most of our choices are made on

complete autopilot, without

awareness of our underlying

motivations or future consequences.

In fact, research shows we often don’t

realize we’re making a choice in the
first place. Considera study which
asked people how many decisions
related to food they made in a day.
What would you say? The average
guess was 14.
In reality, when the same study
participants were told to carefully

track their decisions, the average they

came up with was a whopping 227
food-related decisions every day!

That’s more than 200 daily decisions

people were unaware of — and those
are just choices related to food.

How can you improve something

when you’re not even aware that

there is something to improve upon?

When you’re not aware of what’s

happening, your monkey is running

the show and guiding your choices.

You are just following your urges and
impulses without even knowing it.

you want to
The point is this: If
overcome procrastination, you need
to increase your awareness of its
many aspects. You need to pay a little
more attention. You need to become a
curious scientist — constantly
watching, studying, and tweaking your
own behavior.
The good news is that you’ll
automatically increase your
awareness simply by reading this book
and learning more about the topic of
procrastination. Once you know some
of the science and theory behind it,
you’ll start detecting patterns in your
life.

The mere act of detecting these

patterns will help you facilitate

change. (Yes, by merely reading this

book, you’ll get better at eliminating
procrastination!)

More awareness is always a good

thing, so I suggest using another
strategy that will help raise awareness
around your behavior and habits
related to procrastination. It’s called a
procrastination log.

TRY THIS: Keep a

Procrastination Log
One of the best ways to increase your
awareness of procrastination is to
keep a log in which you track avoided
activities, excuses, rationalizations,
emotions, specific thoughts, and so
on.

This record of your current behavior

helps you see recurring patterns,

learn from mistakes, and prepare

better next time.

I suggest using a simple three-row

spreadsheet with the rows “avoided
activity,” “explanation,” and “plan.”

Here are some examples you may

recognize from your own life:

Avoided Activity Explanation Plan

Doing homework. I was doing homework Next time I’m working on my

when Mike called and asked homework, I’ll

put my phone on me to come over and try his
airplane mode. new video game. I said yes
and never got around to
finishing my homework.

I wanted to get up at 6 a.m.

Getting up early today, but I hit the snooze
button and slept until 9 a.m.

I wanted to exercise after

work today. Unfortunately I
was a bit tired and told
Exercise myself that it wasn’t worth it
if I don’t have enough
energy. That was, of
course, just a lame excuse.

I wanted to study on
Sunday, but my friends
urged me to go partying
Studying for an with them. I went, got
exam completely hammered,
woke up with a hangover,
and couldn’t get myself to
study in that condition.

For whatever reason, I just

kept delaying paying the
Paying the bills
bills and now have to pay a
 fine.

Read the following

implementation intention (see
chapter five for more on that)
before going to bed: “As soon as
the alarm clock goes off, I
immediately get out of bed — no
matter what!” If the problem
persists, I’ll create a
commitment contract (see
chapter six for more on that).

I can make exercising after work

easier by preparing everything
beforehand. From now on, I’ll
pack everything I need for
exercising in the morning. I am
also creating a plan: “When I get
home from work, I immediately
grab my training bag and head
to the gym — no matter what.”

If my friends ask me to come

party this weekend, I’ll
immediately answer in the
following way, “Thanks, but no. I
really need to study.”
Alternatively, I can still go
partying but drink less. In that
case, I can use the following
implementation intention for
myself: “After my first two beers,
I will stop drinking for the rest of
the night.”

From now on, I’ll use the

following plan: “Next time I get a
bill, I immediately pay it.”

These examples will hopefully give

you a better understanding of
awareness and why it’s so important.

To make sure you can fully grasp the

idea, I want to finish the chapter with a
story from my own life. I believe the
story beautifully illustrates just what a
crucial part awareness can play in our
lives.

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine

visited for coffee. During our
conversation, he realized he had
forgotten to work out that day, saying
something along the lines of, “Oh,
shit. I wanted to work out today. I
must have forgotten. Ah, well…”

That was a moment of awareness. He

became aware of the fact that he had
wanted to do one thing, but ended up
doing something else. Great! That’s
the beginning of positive change.

Unfortunately for him, he simply

shrugged it off and made no big deal

out of it.

What a shame! If he had paid just a

little more attention, allocated just a
little time to self-reflection, he could
have learned so much.
He could, for example, have realized
that this happens to him all the time.
He could have realized that this
pattern plays out like clockwork in his
life. He could have realized that he
didn’t exercise because he told
himself that he’ll feel more like doing it
tomorrow. He could have realized that
he’s in the habit of procrastinating
when it comes to working out. He
could have realized that this is an
issue he needs to address. He could
have realized that he needs to create a
plan to guarantee he exercises
regularly.

He missed a golden opportunity to

learn from his mistakes. (I told him
afterwards, by the way.)
And unless he starts paying more
attention to his habit, thought, and
behavior patterns, he’s unlikely to
ever get a handle on this particular
issue. He’ll keep running into the same
trouble many times over. He’ll find his
health and fitness deteriorating
without ever understanding the
causes behind it. He’ll
probably end up blaming his genetics
or outside circumstances instead of
taking a closer look at his own
behavior.

Please don’t make the same mistake.

Please pay a little more attention to

your daily thoughts, emotions, and
behaviors. Watch. Observe. Dissect.
Analyze. Prepare. Repeat.
It has to be on a basis of constant
trial-and-error — because that’s how

we get better.

And I can tell you from my own life

that if you’re willing to allocate time

and effort to awareness, the rewards

will come quickly and in abundance.

Chapter Summary

The idea: Successful change always

starts with awareness. If you’re not
aware of what’s going wrong in your
life, how are you going to fix it? The
more awareness you develop
regarding your procrastination
tendencies, the faster you’ll change for
the better.

The tactics (Tactics: ?)

Keep a Procrastination Log: Keep a

log in which you keep track of avoided
activities, explanations for what
happened, and how you plan to
overcome the issue next time. The
record of your current behavior helps
you see recurring patterns, learn from

THE PARADOX
OF GETTING
STARTED —
WHY THE
PROBLEM IS
THE CURE
What do the tasks you procrastinate

on tend to have in common? They all

make you feel uncomfortable,

anxious, or overwhelmed, don’t they?

Sometimes it’s almost as if you’re

feeling actual pain when thinking

about such tasks, right?

Well, that’s because contemplating

certain tasks does cause actual,

physical pain. When researchers put
people in fMRI machines and ask
them to think about doing a dreaded
task, the pain regions of the
participants’ brains light up, signaling
that they’re experiencing tangible pain.

I’m not kidding. When you’re thinking

about doing the taxes, you feel actual

pain. When you’re thinking about
exercising after work, you feel actual
pain. When you’re thinking about
writing your dissertation, you feel
actual pain.

No wonder so many of us keep

procrastinating! Nobody likes to feel

pain (except for the occasional

masochist, I suppose).

And what’s our natural inclination

when facing painful things? We shy

away from them.

Once burned, twice shy.

Of course we want to avoid and put

off certain tasks — they literally hurt

us.

While some people can think about

difficult tasks with no problems,
procrastinators think about certain
tasks and immediately start feeling
bad. It’s like I said in chapter one —
procrastinators tend to have deep
emotional scars that lead to having
negative associations with certain
tasks. It’s not our fault that we feel this
procrastination-causing pain, but it’s
our responsibility to learn how to
handle it and function in spite of it.
Keep this in mind next time some
smart-ass tells you something along
the lines of, “Just do it already. What’s
the big deal?” Well, it’s not that
simple. And everyone who’s ever
struggled with procrastination knows
that it’s impossible to “just do it.” That’s
exactly our problem — for whatever
reason, we can’t just do it. But I
digress…

Coming back to experiencing pain

when contemplating certain tasks, it

may very well be that you’re unaware

of this pain in your day-to-day life.
That’s because it tends to happen
unconsciously.

As an example, you may make the

conscious plan to study after school
today. At night, when going to bed,
you may realize that you didn’t do it.
Whoops, what happened? Your
unconscious mind steered you away
from the pain, that’s what happened.

To bring back our little analogy, the

monkey urged you to run away from
what feels painful and toward what
feels better. You may have watched
some TV, had a nice dinner, and
gone out for a beer with your buddies
— activities that feel good. That’s the
monkey unconsciously and
automatically guiding your behavior
away from pain and toward pleasure.

course, take a fair amount of

It will, of
awareness on your part to see these
patterns operating in your own life.

And now for the good news.

Research shows that there’s an easy
way to get rid of the pain associated
with certain tasks: Just. Get. Started.

As soon as you start engaging in a

task, the pain evaporates. Barbara
Oakley, an expert on student
procrastination, explains in her book
A Mind For Numbers:

“We procrastinate about things that

make us feel uncomfortable. Medical
imaging studies have shown that
mathphobes, for example, appear to
avoid math because even just
thinking about it seems to hurt. The
pain centers of their brains light up
when they contemplate working on
math.

But there’s something important to

note. It was the anticipation that was
painful. When the mathphobes
actually did math, the pain
disappeared.”

Fascinating, right?

The pain is in the anticipation, not in

the actual performance of a dreaded
task.

If you want relief from negative

emotions caused by dreaded tasks,

you can either procrastinate, which

simply postpones the pain, or you can
just get started on the task (easier said
than done, but strategies are coming).
Once you get started, the pain
evaporates.

And this near-instant pain relief isn’t

the only thing that’s happening when
we get started. Other research shows
that the mere act of getting started
powerfully shifts our perception of the
task and ourselves. Timothy A.
Pychyl, a leading procrastination
researcher, explains in his book
Solving The Procrastination Puzzle:

“Surprisingly, we found a change in

the participants’ perceptions of their
tasks. On Monday, the dreaded,
avoided task was perceived as very
stressful, difficult, and unpleasant. On
Thursday (or the wee hours of Friday
morning), once they had actually
engaged in the task they had avoided
all week, their perceptions changed.
The ratings of task stressfulness,
difficulty, and unpleasantness
decreased significantly… In fact,
many participants made comments
when we paged them during their
efforts that they wished
they had started earlier — the task
was actually interesting, and they
thought they could do a better job with
a little more time.”

Once you get started, you realize it’s

not nearly as bad as you thought.

The task isn’t as daunting,

unpleasant, difficult, or stressful as
you’ve imagined. Heck, it’s actually
kind of fun and interesting. And hey!
You’re not as lazy and unproductive
as you thought. You can do this! You
can be disciplined and get things done!

Better yet, you’re now actively

working on your task and are
probably making great progress.
Making progress feels great and so
your mood, optimism, and
self-confidence get another nice little
boost. All of a sudden, you’re feeling
upbeat, positive, optimistic, and
confident in yourself — you now have
some powerful positive momentum on
your side.

The small act of getting started

creates ripple effects and sets in
motion a whole machinery of
self-perpetuating upward spirals. As
you get started, pain goes away,
perceptions change, and you start
creating momentum.

It’s like Newton’s law of inertia states:

“An object at rest stays at rest and an
object in motion stays in motion.”

It’s all about making that important

switch from non-doing to doing.

That’s what procrastination comes

down to: moving from non-doing to
doing. A large part of overcoming
procrastination means getting better
at making that switch.

The good news is that you become

better and better at making the switch
every single time you do it.
Every time you overcome the
motivational surface tension and

move from non-doing to doing,you get

better at it. Every time you manage to
get started on difficult tasks, you build
up that muscle of bursting through
resistance and doing what needs to
get done whether you feel like it or
Everything counts here. You either
reinforce the pattern of needless
delay, or the pattern of getting started
and overcoming resistance.

Now you may interject, “But Nils, this

is exactly my problem! I just can’t get
started!”

You’re right. Getting started is

simultaneously the root of the
problem and its solution. If you can’t
get yourself to begin a task, if you
can’t resist the pull of the monkey,
you’ll end up procrastinating. If you
are able to get started, on the other
hand, procrastination gets nipped in
the bud.

To overcome procrastination, you

need to get better at getting started,
vetoing the monkey, overcoming
resistance, handling negative
emotions — call it whatever you want.

Ultimately, most of the tactics in this

book will help you with that in one
way or another.

For now, let’s look at five specific

short-term strategies that you can
start using immediately.

TRY THIS: Focus On The

Next Step, Not The Next
Thousand Steps
A major reason many of us
procrastinate is because we’re

overwhelmed.

It’san uncomfortable feeling that is

sure to get our monkey out of its
cage. The monkey wants to run away
from the uncomfortable feelings and,
as a result, we become resistant to the
task and experience an urge to do
something more enjoyable.
Because of that, we tend to be
especially vulnerable to
procrastination when facing big
projects, which are naturally
challenging and overwhelming. All
those options, unknowns, and
uncertainties are almost unbearable
for the monkey, which is why it tends
to run rampant when you’re
contemplating large projects. Where
the first
ne small and actionable task is
priority? What’s a reasonable
deadline? What are all the things that
still need to get done?

It’s almost impossible to get started if

all those overwhelming thoughts are
swirling around your head.

The key to overcoming this type of

procrastination is to simplify things by
breaking the project down into small,
actionable steps.

First, create a list of all the things

you’ll need to get done. Second,

create a plan — which tasks are you

tackling first and in which order?
Third, stop worrying about the steps
further down the list and start focusing
only on the very next step. Fourth, just
get started on that very next step.

Stop worrying about getting it all

done. Stop worrying about all the

things left to do. Stop worrying about

what’s still to come. Just keep
focusing on the very next step.

Theodore Roosevelt once said: "I

dream of men who take the next step
instead of worrying about the next
thousand steps."

And Mark Twain seemed to agree

when he said, “The secret of getting
ahead is getting started. The secret of
getting started is breaking your
complex overwhelming tasks into
small manageable tasks, and then
starting on the first one.”

So, get in the habit of focusing on one

thing only: the next actionable step.
And then get started on that. Do not
permit yourself to worry about the
next thousand steps — that’s a
surefire way to get overwhelmed and
procrastinate.
John Steinbeck, a Nobel Prize
winning author, explains it perfectly:

“When I face the desolate impossibility

of writing 500 pages, a sick sense of
failure falls on me and I know I can
never do it. Then, gradually, I write
one page and then another. One day’s
work is all I can permit myself to
contemplate.”

Don’t allow yourself to look too far

ahead. One small and actionable task

is all you can allow yourself to

contemplate.

Inch by inch, life's a cinch; yard by

yard, life is hard.

Now, fair warning: This tactic isn’t as

easy as it may sound. It takes effort
and willpower. You’ll have to actively
divert your focus from the
overwhelming aspects of a project,
then funnel it onto the next actionable
step.

As long as you’re able to keep your

focus tight like that, your monkey will
be humming along without disturbing
you.

TRY THIS: Lower Your

Ridiculous Standards
High standards are bad news for

anyone prone to procrastinate.

What do I mean by having high

standards? High standards are when
you think you have to do things
perfectly or they’re not worth doing at
all. It’s when you think you have to
meditate 20 minutes every morning
as a beginning meditator. It’s when you
think you have to exercise four to five
times a week when you’re currently a
couch potato. It’s when you think you
need the perfect business plan before
being able to start a business. It’s
when I think my first Kindle book
needs to be the best book on
procrastination ever written (guilty as
charged!).

High standards create a multitude of

problems for procrastinators.

First of all, high standards make it

hard to get started. Think about it —
the higher your standard, the harder
getting started becomes. As you’re
moving the hurdle higher, you’re
making it more difficult to climb over.

Put differently, your initial resistance

to getting started grows as your
standard grows. The higher your
standard, the greater your resistance.
Sitting down to meditate for one
minute (low standard) is easy. Sitting
down to meditate for 20 minutes (high
standard) scares the crap out of most
people. Which are you more likely to
get started on?

In addition to that, high standards set

us up for a cycle of failure, self-
criticism, and procrastination. When
you inevitably fail to meet your high
standards, chances are you beat
yourself up over it. You feel like a
You get demoralized, drown
yourself in self-pity, and end up even
more likely to procrastinate again in
the future. (We’ll talk more about self-
criticism and its detrimental effects on
procrastination in chapter 8.)

The solution is to lower your

standards.

Make winning easy.

Aim to meditate for one minute a day,

not 20 minutes. Aim to go for a walk a
few times a week, not exercise daily.
Aim to do five pushups, a one-hour
not
full body workout. Aim to work on
writing your Kindle book for 20
minutes, not a couple of hours.

Keep in mind that you can always do

more. Once you’ve overcome the initial
resistance, you can meditate,
exercise, or write for as long as you’d
like. The key is to lower the bar for
getting started. That allows you to get
in motion without feeling intimidated.
And once you’re in motion, Newton’s
law of inertia states that you’ll stay in
motion.

The beauty of lowering your

standards is that it allows you to just

get started. And once you get started,

good things start happening.

Don’t let perfect be the enemy of the

good is a good motto to follow.

TRY THIS: Follow the

Two-Minute Rule
Invented by productivity expert David
Allen, the two-minute rule states that if
a task takes less than two minutes to
complete, do it immediately.

Instead of answering simple yes or no

emails “later,” do so right after opening
them. Instead of leaving the dishes in
the sink for hours after cooking, wash
them right after cooking or eating.
Instead of bringing out the garbage
“later,” do it right when the garbage
bin is full. Instead of needlessly
delaying paying your bills, pay them
right after getting them in the mail.
Stop filling your mind or to-do list with
an endless array of small tasks.
Instead, get in the habit of ticking
them off right when they appear.

Not only will this reduce how

overwhelmed you are, free up a lot of
mental space, and give you a small
sense of accomplishment, but it will
also get
you in the habit of starting and
finishing. Before you know it, getting
started on small tasks becomes
second nature. And sooner or later,
that habit
translates into the habit of getting
started on bigger tasks and projects
too.

Just following this simple rule helps

you rewire your brain to get started on
tasks, get more things done, and
procrastinate less. Easy, yet effective.

TRY THIS: Set an

Implementation Intention
Implementation intentions are simple

“if-then” plans designed to program

your unconscious mind to act in a
desired way in a specific future
situation. For the “if” part, you pick a
cue — e.g., a specific time, a thought,
an emotion, or anything else — and for
the “then” part, you pick a desired
action.

“If situation X arises, then I will

perform response Y.”

If such and such happens, then I will
do such and such. If I get home from
work, then I’ll cook a healthy dinner. If
I feel the urge to procrastinate, then I’ll
just ignore it.

These plans sound simple and

somewhat naïve, but they can be
incredibly effective. They’re sometimes
referred as
to “instant habits” because
of their power to unconsciously guide
our behavior in positive ways. We’ll
get more into the details in chapter
five, which is solely focused on
implementation
intentions.

For now, let’s form some

implementation intentions designed to

help you get started. Note that it’s not

necessary to use the specific if-then
structure. As long as you link a cue
with a behavior, you’re good to go.

Here are a couple of ideas:

• When I get home from work today,
then I will immediately pack my
gym bag and head to the gym to
do my workout.

• If I catch myself thinking “I’ll feel

more like it tomorrow,” then I’ll just
get started on some aspect of the
task.

• If I feel too tired to do something,

then I’ll just ignore it and get started

anyway.

• Saturday morning after breakfast,

I’ll immediately start studying for
my upcoming math exam.

• After watching 30 minutes of TV, I’ll

immediately get started on writing
my dissertation.

TRY THIS: Focus on the

Process, Not the Outcome
An outcome is always the result of a

process.

If you follow the right process long

enough, you will eventually achieve

the outcome as a natural by-product.

If you eat healthy, sleep well, and

exercise regularly, then you will lose
weight. If you write 1,000 words every
day, then you will finish your book. If
you play footballevery day, then you
will become more skilled at that sport.
If you study for your exams for hours
every day, then you will get good grad
es.

During your journey you

from where
are to where you want to go, you can
either focus on the process or the
outcome.

If you’re trying to lose weight, you can

either step on the scale every day
and measure your weight, or you can
forget about the scale and just focus
on making sure that you eat healthy
every day. Likewise, if you’re trying to
build more muscle mass, you can
focus on your weight and what you
look like in the mirror,or you can trust
the process and focus on eating well
and going to the gym regularly.
When you’re trying to get started on
an unappealing, difficult, or otherwise
uncomfortable task, it’s best if you
forget about the outcome and just
focus on the process.

It’s usually the outcome that is

associated with negative emotions,

not the process. Writing a 500-page

novel (the outcome) scares the crap
out of anyone. Writing for 30 to 60
minutes every morning (the process)
is a lot more appealing.

Next time you’re trying to work on

something you tend to procrastinate
on, simply set a timer for 20 to 30
minutes. Tell yourself you’re going to
work on this thing for 20 to 30 minutes.
That’s it. It’s that easy. It’s nothing to
be scared of.

Setting a timer helps you focus on the

process and reduces a lot of the
friction associated with getting
started. You literally calm down your
overactive brain and help it stop
worrying about all the nonsense it
tends to get caught up in. In other
words, you stop scaring your monkey
and soothe it instead (the negative
emotions associated with the
outcome tend to get it all amped up).

You simplify things. You make it easy.

And before you know it, you’ve started
and good things ensue.

Chapter Summary

The main idea: Learning ways to get

started on tasks is a massive step
toward overcoming procrastination.
By definition, you can’t get yourself
if
to begin a task, you procrastinate. If
you manage to get started, you stop
procrastination dead in its tracks. You
also realize that the task isn’t as bad
as you thought, start feeling better
about yourself, and create powerful
momentum because you’re making
progress.

The tactics
Focus on the next step, not the
next thousand steps. Use your
willpower to move your attention
away from the overwhelming aspects
of a project and narrow it down to the
next actionable task you can get
started on.

Lower your perfectionistic

standards. Decrease your initial

resistance to getting started by

lowering your standards. For
example, aim to meditate for one
minute, not 20 minutes.

Follow the two-minute rule. If a task

takes less than two minutes to
complete, do it immediately.

Set an implementation intention.

Use the formula, “If situation X arises,
then I will perform response Y.” A
common example: “If I get home after
work, then I’ll immediately start
studying for my upcoming math
exam.”

Focus on the process, not the

outcome. Set a timer for 20 to 30
minutes and focus on the process of
working on a dreaded task for that
predetermined amount of time.

WHAT
PRODUCTIVITY

GURUS
WON’T TELL
YOU ABOUT
PROCRASTINATION

— WHY
TIME
MANAGEMENT
IS ONLY
PART OF THE
SOLUTION
Some people will tell you that
procrastination is primarily a time
management issue.

Don’t listen to these people. They

have no idea what they’re talking

about. Procrastination, at its very core,

is an emotion management problem,
not a time management problem.

Let me give you an example to

illustrate why that’s true. There were
times in the past where I would plan
out my days perfectly from a time
management perspective. I had my
morning ritual, then some work, then
a short walk, then some more work,
then lunch, and so on. I had it all
planned out in detail. Any time
management guru would have been
proud of me.

Here’s what happened despite all of

that: More often than not, I just
couldn’t get myself to do what I had
so beautifully planned. I wanted to
follow through with my morning ritual.
I wanted to follow through with tackling
the most challenging task of the day
first (eat that frog, right?). Iwanted to
follow through with going on a walk
after the first work period. I just
couldn’t get myself to do it. The

associated with certain tasks — was

just too much to handle and I
procrastinated.
It wasn’t a time management issue, it
was an emotion management issue. I
procrastinated because I couldn’t deal
with the negative emotions, not
because I was suffering from bad time
management.

If you let your monkey run the show,

time management will not be enough.
You can have the best time
management skills in the world and
still suffer from a crazy and crippling
amount of procrastination.

With that being said, good time

management can, of course, be very
helpful.

So while time management isn’t a

complete solution (and not the

primary focus of this guide), it’s still a

necessary part of the solution.

In this chapter, we’ll discuss three

basic time management strategies. If
you get these down, you’ll benefit
greatly from improved clarity and
productivity. You’ll procrastinate less,
and you’ll be well-positioned to use the
other procrastination tactics because
you’re now operating from a solid time
management foundation.

Onwards!

TRY THIS: Schedule,

Schedule, Schedule
Here’s the first rule of time
management: “What gets scheduled

gets done. What doesn’t get scheduled

doesn’t get done.”

You probably have a to-do list, either

on paper or in your head, with the
things you’d like to get done today,
tomorrow, or sometime in themore
distant future. And while having a list
is great, it’s only the first step. The real
magic happens when you start
scheduling exactly when you’re going
to do the things on your list.
You see, unless you take what’s on
your list and put it on the calendar, it’s
not real. It’s just an idea on a piece of
paper. Something that might get done.

But the moment you schedule it, it

becomes real (which is probably why
we’re so resistant to the idea of
scheduling in the first place).

One thing I tend to procrastinate on is

going to the hairdresser. For days and
weeks, I know I should go and have
the idea swirling around in my head.
Sometimes I even write it down
on my
to-do list. But until I schedule an exact
time and date, you can be sure that I
keep further delaying it, “Today I have
so much energy. I shouldn’t waste it.”
“The weather is too beautiful. I should
do something outside.” “It’s not that
bad yet. I can wait another week.”

Once you schedule something, you

immediately short circuit all the
rationalizations and excuses holding
you back.

A few years ago, I came across a

great study illustrating the powers of
scheduling things. 20 drug addicts
were asked to write a résumé before
five p.m. that day. They were
encouraged to do so because it might
help them find work after leaving
rehab. One group of addicts was told
to clearly define when and where they
would write the résumé. The other
half were merely told to write their
résumé at a time and place of their
choosing.

One group had to schedule it and the

other didn’t. The results? At five p.m.,
eight of the 10 addicts who clearly
defined when and where they would
write the résumé had actually written
it. Of the 10 addicts who didn’t
schedule, none (!) of them had written
it.

It’s a simple, but powerful truth worth

remembering: What gets scheduled
gets done. What doesn’t get
scheduled doesn’t get done.

If you want to procrastinate less, get

in the habit of using a calendar and
transferring items on your lists onto
that calendar.

TRY THIS: Start Your Day

On Fire
Has the following scenario ever
happened to you?

Your alarm clock wakes you up way

too early in the morning. You’re still
dead tired and you hit the snooze
button a bunch of times. When you
finally manage to crawl out of bed, you
already feel like a loser because you
got up late.

You rush through your morning ritual,

but skip certain parts because you
simply don’t have the time. You then
rush to work and eat a bagel on your
way there. You arrive late, feeling
exhausted, tired, and stressed out.

You have no idea what your most

important tasks are, don’t feel like
finding out, and decide to check your
email, Facebook, and read some
news instead. Before you know it, 30
minutes have passed and you haven’t
gotten anything done yet. You start
feeling guilty. Worst of all, you still
don’t feel like working on important
projects.

What the hell just happened? The day

has barely even started and you’re
already bathing in a soup of guilt,
stress, disappointment, and other
negative emotions.

Now remember why we procrastinate:

to run away from negative emotions.
Guess what happens when you start
your day like that? Exactly. You’ll want
to run away from those painful
feelings. You’ll distract yourself, you’ll
feel even guiltier, and you’ll basically
procrastinate all day long.

Once you’re in that

procrastination-laziness-d

istraction-negativity mode, it’s hard to

get out again. This is Newton’s law of
inertia all over again: an object in
motion stays in motion; an object at
rest stays at rest.

Once you’re dillydallying, you tend to

keep doing it all day long. And
because you’re feeling guilty,
disappointed, and ashamed for not
being productive, actually doing
something worthwhile becomes
almost impossible. Basically, your
before is almost a guarantee tha You
see, the first few hours of the day are
of incredible importance. If you mess
them up, chances are you’re screwed
for the entire day. You’ve got so much
negative momentum going on that it’s
highly unlikely you’ll be able to turn
things around.

Thankfully, this works both ways. If

you dominate the first few hours of
the day, you’re wellon your way to a
highly productive day with very little
procrastination. Once you’re being
productive and disciplined, you tend
to stay productive and disciplined.
You’re building positive momentum.
You’re getting things done, are making
progress, and feel good about
yourself, maybe even a little proud. All
those positive emotions fuel your
motivation and keep you buzzing all
day long.

I can’t stress this enough: If you want

to procrastinate less, you need to
begin your day on fire. You need to
get out of bed immediately after
waking up. You need to patiently
complete your morning ritual, eat a
healthy breakfast, and start working on
important and meaningful tasks at
work. No goofing off. No warming up.
No procrastinating early in the day.

And now, the million-dollar question:

How can you make sure you don’t
mess up those crucial first few hours
of the day? It’s actually quite simple.
You need to plan your day the night
before. You need to know exactly
what you’re going to do in those first
few hours. You need a clear
step-by-step script that you can follow
without having to think. This is what
the last time management tip is all
about.

TRY THIS: Plan Your Day

the Night Before
Planning your day the night before is

crucial for a number of reasons.

First of all, knowing exactly what

you’re going to do in the morning

allows you to hit the ground running.

This gives you the opportunity to
make progress, feel good about
yourself, and generate that
all-important positive momentum.
Planning your day the night before is
almost a guarantee that you’ll get into
action mode early in the day. And
once you’re in that action mode —
being productive and disciplined —
you tend to stay in it all day long.
Planning also helps eliminate any
moments of, “Hmm, what should I do
now?” It’s during these moments that
we’re most vulnerable to
procrastination. Instead of figuring out
the most important tasks (which is
uncomfortable, and therefore brings
out the monkey), we tend to do what’s
convenient and urgent. Or even
worse, we just waste our time on
Facebook.

With that being said, let’s briefly talk

about how to plan your day. To begin
with, create a list of all the activities
you must and want to incorporate into
the following day. This list includes
fixed appointments (like work,
doctor’s appointments, or meetings)
and high-value activities (like
important
projects, meditation, exercise, or
reading).

Once you have your list of activities,

simply drag and drop them into your
calendar. First, add the fixed
appointments. Then add your
high-value activities around the fixed
appointments.

Personally, I tend to only plan my

mornings in detail, while leaving the

rest of the day open and flexible.

Today’s plan looked like this:

1. Exercise

2. Cold shower

3. Meditate

4. Write some of this book

5. Take a walk outside as a break

6. Keep writing on this book.

That’s it. That was my entire plan. It

took me 30 seconds to create and
ensured that I started my day on fire
while building that all-important
positive momentum.

Chapter Summary (take

divider on same page)

The idea: While time management

isn’t a complete solution to
procrastination, it’s still a very helpful
tool and a necessary foundation to
build upon.

The tactics

Schedule, schedule, schedule.

What gets scheduled gets done. Get

in the habit of moving tasks from your

your calendar. When
to-do list to
exactly are you going to get
something done? (If you don’t
currently use a calendar, I highly
suggest starting now.)
Start your day on fire. Be as
disciplined and productive in the early
morning as you possibly can be. No
time-wasting. No dillydallying. No
goofing off. Follow your plan —
whether you feel like it or not! Create
that all-important momentum and
remember: Once you’re in action
mode, you’ll tend to stay in it all day
long.

Plan your day the night before. Get

in the habit of creating a step-by-step
outline for the next day (at least for
the first few hours). You should be
able to go through the early morning
hours without having to think much.
THE MAGIC OF

A SIMPLE
PLAN
— HOW TO

PROGRAM
YOUR
UNCONSCIOUS

MIND TO
AUTOMATICALLY
PROCRASTINATE

LESS
Wouldn’t it be great if you could
program yourself to act in any way
you like in the future?

If you could just write a code for

behavior and then automatically find

yourself following that code?

If you could plan today how you would

act tomorrow?
Well, good news — you can do

exactly that with the use of

 _
implementation
briefly discussed
you may
intentions
predetermine
specific
this:

“If

________.”

You

with
are
a
part). “As

immediately
linking

desired

soon as
intentions,
in chapter
recall, implementation
are if-then plans that
how you

a cue
behavior
which we’ve
two. As

will act in
future situation. They look like

happens, then I will do

(the “if” part)

I wake

done eating, then I’ll immediately

cue,
the real magic starts happenin
You decide now how you’re going to

act in the future.

(the “then”

up,
get out of bed.” “If I’m
I’ll
a

wash
This allows you to make decisions
from a place of calm and rationality.

You get to ask yourself, “What would

be the best way to act if such and
such happens? What would I like to do
if such and such happened? What
would I like to do after finishing XYZ?”

Implementation intentions may sound

too simplistic to be effective, but
they’re actually one of modern
psychology’s most studied and proven
methods to positively change people’s
behavior.

In the remainder of this chapter, we’ll

discuss why implementation intentions
work and look at some of the
scientific proof of their effectiveness.
At the end, you’ll create your personal
implementation intentions with the help
of my examples.

Why Do Implementation
Intentions Work So Well?
It’s fascinating what happens in our
brains when we’re forming these
implementation intentions.

First, a link is being created between

the cue and the desired behavior.

If you wanted to go to the gym after

coming home from work, you’d create
the following plan: “As soon as I come
home from work, I’ll head to the gym.”
In this case, the cue “coming home
from work” would be linked with the
behavior “heading to the gym”.

Next, the cue becomes heavily

activated in your brain. This means
that the cue is just dying to get noticed.
It’s kind of like the school kid raising
its hand in excitement and trying to get
the teacher’s attention.

Without any conscious effort or

awareness of your own, your brain is

now constantly scanning the

environment in search of that cue
(e.g., “coming home from work”).

Once your brain detects the cue, the

Because
cue and behavior have already been
linked,your brain automatically
executes your predetermined plan.
You’ll find yourself packing your stuff
and heading to the gym whether
you’re aware of it or not. Your
unconscious mind simply takes over
and executes your plan on your behalf.

Sometimes you realize what’s

happening and sometimes you don’t.

Either way, you’ll find yourself doing

the right thing.

That’s really the beauty and elegance

of this intervention: that most of it
happens below your level of
conscious awareness. You can be
busy doing other things while your
brain is scanning the environment for
you, detecting cues and guiding
behavior. Some people refer to
implementation intentions as “instant
habits” because of their automatic and
unconscious nature.

And just like real habits,

implementation intentions not only

unconsciously and automatically guide

your behavior; they also impact your
willpower in desirable ways.

For starters, they conserve your

willpower because you’re not required

to make conscious decisions when

their habitual nature takes over.
Preserving willpower means there will
be more left in the tank to veto the
monkey — to fight temptations and
get done what needs to get done.

In addition to that, you’re also able to

better overcome bouts of low
willpower. When you automatically do
the right thing, it doesn’t matter if your
willpower is depleted or not. (If you’re
confused about the willpower thing,
don’t get hung up. We’ll discuss it in
detail in chapter 10.)

So that’s why implementation

intentions work in theory. Now let’s

see the proof…

The Proof Is in the Pudding

Believe it or not, implementation

intentions have been proven effective

in changing people’s behavior in over

100 studies.
They’ve been shown to help people
lose weight, quit smoking, eat
healthier, drive more carefully, and
more.

One study asked students before

Christmas break if they wanted to
participate in an experiment of how
people spend their holidays. Students
who agreed were instructed to write
an essay describing how they spent
their Christmas, which had to be
mailed in within two days of Christmas
Eve. Half of the participants were
given another instruction: to decide
when and where they were going to
write their essay. In other words, they
were told to create an implementation
intention.

The results speak for themselves.

Two days after Christmas, 71% of
students who predetermined when
and where to write the essay had sent
it in, compared to just 32% of students
who didn’t create implementation
intentions. Think about that. Taking
30 seconds to create a simple if-then
plan more than doubled the success
rates of students.

Another study looked at tenth graders

on summer break. They all had the
goal of studying for their upcoming
PSAT test in fall. In May, the
researchers gave students a book
with 10 PSAT practice tests and told
them they would collect the book
again in September when they
returned to school. One group of
students was also asked to decide
when and where they would work on
the practice problems over the
summer months (e.g., “Monday
through Thursday after breakfast in
my room”). The students did not get a
single reminder from the researchers
over the summer.

After collecting the books from the

students in September, the
differences between the planners and
non-planners was drastic. While
non-planners completed an average of
100 problems, planners completed a
staggering 250 problems. Again,
performance more than doubled — all
from one intention that took less than a
few minutes to create.

Another experiment was designed to

help people quit smoking through the
use of implementation intentions. The
results? Planners smoked significantly
fewer cigarettes than non-planners
over a period of two months. More
importantly, 12% of planners quit
smoking completely, as compared to
only 2% of non-planners.
It doesn’t matter what you’re trying to
accomplish; implementation intentions
will increase your chances of
succeeding significantly.

Heidi Grant Halvorson, an expert on

the science of goal achievement, sums
up the benefits of implementation
intentions perfectly in her book
Succeed:

“Gollwitzer and his colleague Paschal

Sheeran recently reviewed the results
from ninety-four studies that
measured the effects of if-then
planning and found significantly
higher rates of goal attainment for just
about every goal you can think of:
using public transportation more
frequently, buying organic foods,
helping others, driving more carefully,
not drinking, not starting smoking,
remembering to recycle, following
through on New Year’s resolutions,
negotiating fairly, avoiding
stereotypical and prejudicial thoughts,
doing math problems… you name the
goal, and these simple plan will help
you reach it.”

She adds:

“Planning when, where, and how you

will take the actions needed to reach
your goal is probably the single most
effective thing you can do to increase
your chances of success.”

Implementation intentions are an

incredibly powerful and flexible tool to

add to your arsenal.

Let’s look at some practical

applications for helping you win the
procrastination battle.

TRY THIS: Set Some

Implementation Intentions
Take a few minutes to think about

your own procrastination habits.

What tasks do you tend to
procrastinate on? When are you most
prone to procrastinate? What activities
would you like to engage in more
often? What new habits would you like
to build?
As you’re thinking about
procrastination in your own life, you’ll
realize there are lots of possibilities for
using implementation intentions.

Write down some if-then plans for

your best ideas and repeat them out

loud or in your head a couple of times.

And don’t worry about keeping your

plans in the specific if-then formula.

As long as you’re linking a cue with a

desired behavior, you’re ready to rock
it.

Below are some specific examples

you can copy, modify, or use as
inspiration. They are designed to help
you overcome many procrastination-
related problems such as not getting
started, resisting temptations,
overcoming times of low willpower,
and so on.

• If I feel overwhelmed by a large

project, then I can break it down into
small, actionable steps and get
started on step one. • If I get bored
during studying, then I’ll ignore it and
just keep going. • If I get discouraged
during writing, then I’ll ignore it and
just keep
going.
• If I feel like hitting the snooze
button, then I’ll immediately get out of
bed.
• If I feel like delaying an important
task, then I’ll immediately get
started on a small aspect of the
task.
• Saturday after breakfast, I’ll start

studying for my exam. • If

upcoming I
find myself making excuses such as
“I’m too tired” or “I’ll feel more

like it tomorrow” or “I work better

under pressure,” then I’ll just ignore
them and get started on a small
aspect of the task.
• If I feel like watching TV, then I’ll
ignore it and keep working. • As soon
as I get home after work, I’ll
immediately prepare a healthy
 dinner.
• When it’s time to go to bed, I’ll
write in my gratitude journal for five
minutes.

Chapter Summary (again

divider)

The idea: Implementation intentions

are a great strategy for tweaking your
own behavior. These simple if-then
plans literally program your
unconscious mind and guide you to
automatically act in desirable,
procrastination-disabling ways.

The tactics

Create implementation intentions:

Look at
endless

mind,
your own

program your
happens,

CARROTS
STICKS —

THEY
MAY BE OLD
SCHOOL…
life and
opportunities
plans. Once
use the
you
following
behavior: _
you will find
to use if-then
have something
formula
“If
then I will do ________.”

&
to
in
BUT
THEY WORK!
In this chapter, we’ll look at the
motivational powers of carrots

(rewards) and sticks (punishments).

Carrots and sticks work by influencing

the monkey in your brain.

As you may recall from chapter one,

the monkey refers to the part of your
brain that operates on a very basic
guiding principle: Approach what feels
good (the carrot) and avoid what feels
bad (the stick).
This part of our brain is stronger in
some people and weaker in others.
Put differently, some people are
blessed with a relatively quiet
monkey, while others are cursed with a
monkey that’s totally out of control
and basically running the show 24/7.
As procrastinators, we tend to have
an out of control monkey. (We’ll talk
about long-term strategies to tame the
monkey and lower its impact on us in
chapter 10.)

The problem with the monkey is that it

doesn’t care about the future at all. It
only cares about what feels good right
this very moment.

The rational part of the brain would

like to exercise regularly in order to
live longer, be healthier, and have
more energy in the future. The
rational part would like to meditate
daily in order to reap huge emotional
benefits in the future. The rational part
would like to finish tasks on time, be
productive, and lay the groundwork for
a successful future.
The monkey, on the other hand,
couldn’t care less about what’s good
for the future. It doesn’t understand
future benefits; it’s only interested in
immediate gratification.

So whenever you suggest doing

something that’s slightly

uncomfortable or difficult, but

beneficial for the future, the monkey
will revolt. It will urge you to run away
from what feels bad right now and
toward something that feels better
right now.

That, in a nutshell, is why we

procrastinate.

Now, here’s the good news: Because

we know the monkey’s basic operating
principles, we can influence it by
using rewards (carrots) and
punishments (sticks).

The goal is to add immediate rewards

for positive activities and immediate
punishments for negative activities.
(The more immediate, the better.)

Instead of waiting for the benefits of

meditation, exercise, or work, we can
make them gratifying in the
short-term. Instead of waiting for the
negative effects of procrastinating, we
can make ourselves pay for
procrastination immediately.

In the remainder of this chapter, we’ll

discuss three specific ideas to put this
knowledge into practice.

TRY THIS: Promise

Yourself a Reward
If you promise yourself a million
dollars for finishing your work project
by Friday, chances are you’ll get it
done by Friday, if not earlier.

Lucky for us, smaller rewards do the

trick as well.
As an example, you can promise
yourself a delicious protein smoothie

after exercising. can promise

You
yourself you’ll go on a $200 shopping
spree after finishing a work project. Or
you can promise yourself you’ll watch
some TV after doing your homework.
The key to effective rewards is to
make them as immediate as possible.
It’s best if they happen right after the
desired behavior, such as a protein
shake and a cookie after exercising,
watching an episode of Game of
Thrones after meditating, or
dillydallying on Facebook after
studying.

If you have a long project you’re

working on, it’s best to promise
yourself multiple small rewards for
completing milestones and one
bigger reward for completing the entire
project.

By associating aversive tasks with

rewards, you infuse them with some
positive emotions, making them less
appalling and more attractive for the
monkey. This means less resistance,
and ultimately less procrastination for
you.

TRY THIS: Bundle

Temptations
While the previous strategy is all

about rewarding yourself after doing

something, temptation bundling is all
about rewarding yourself while you’re
doing it.

Temptation bundling means

combining a temptation (something

that feels good) with something you

tend to procrastinate on. You’re
bundling a behavior you should do with
a behavior you feel tempted to do.

This adds immediate gratification to

aversive tasks, basically allowing the
monkey to be a lot less reluctant
about them.

Katy Milkman, the inventor of this

strategy, came up with this idea due

to her own needs. Here she talks

about her struggles with
procrastination and how temptation
bundling helped her get a handle on
it:

“What I realized is that if I only

allowed myself to watch my favorite
TV shows while exercising gym,
at the
then I’d stop wasting time at home on
useless television, and I’d start
craving trips to the gym at the end of
a long day because I’d want to find out
what happens next in my show. And
not only that, I’d actually enjoy my
workout and my show more
combined. I wouldn’t feel guilty
watching TV, and time would fly while
I was at the gym. So when I talk about
temptation bundling, I mean
temptation — something
like a TV show, a guilty pleasure,
something that will pull you into
engaging ina behavior — with
something you know you should do
but might struggle to do.”

Ifyou want to procrastinate less,

choose a task you tend to delay and
bundle it with one of your guilty
pleasures.

Some common ideas are to watch TV

while you’re eating a healthy meal,
listen to audiobooks while you’re
exercising, your favorite TV
watch
show while ironing or doing other
household chores, or drink a
cappuccino while working.

If you want, you can go a step further

and only indulge in the temptations
when also engaging in the positive
behaviors. That would look as follows.
Only watch TV while eating a healthy
meal. Only listen to audiobooks while
exercising. Only watch your favorite
TV show while ironing or doing other
household chores. Only drink
cappuccinos while working.

And of course, you can use

temptations for multiple good

behaviors — e.g., only watch TV when

you’re eating something healthy,
when you’re ironing, when you’re
stretching, or when you’re doing other
household chores.

The basic idea is to make a dreaded

task a bit more enticing. When I don’t
feel like working, for example, I’ll
sometimes “allow” myself to have
another cup of coffee, some dark
chocolate, or another treat. This is
often enough for me to break through
the initial resistance and just get
started.

I’m also a regular user of smart drugs

and will basically tell myself, “Okay, I’m
going to try this new performance
enhancer. In return, I’ll work for
another hour or two on this project.”

You’re basically negotiating with

yourself. And it works.

TRY THIS: Make

Procrastination Pay
Instead of rewarding yourself for
getting something done (carrot), this
strategy is all about punishing
yourself for not getting something
done (stick).
This approach tends to work better
because of a concept called loss
aversion — people’s tendency to
prefer avoiding losses to acquiring
equivalent gains. It’s better to not lose
$10 than to find $10. Some research
suggests that losses are twice as
powerful as gains.

Here’s how this tactic works: You give

your buddy $100. If you complete your
desired activity by, say, 9 p.m., you
get your $100 back. If you don’t, you
lose the $100.

This is often referred to as a

commitment contract. You commit to

doing something (complete activity by

9 p.m.) and set a penalty for failing to
keep your commitment (lose $100).

The penalty can be anything that

creates massive pain for you — huge
sums of money, doing something
embarrassing in public, shaving your
head, not going to your favorite
festival, and so on.

The greater the pain you’ll have to

endure for failing, the better it’ll work.

If you use money, make sure you put

up the money beforehand. Don’t say,
“I’ll give it to you when I fail.” No, no,
no. You give the money beforehand.
If you want it back, get the thing done
on time!

You can create such agreements with

your mother, a trusted friend, or a
third-party website such as
stickk.com. Whatever option you
choose, make sure that your referee
actually pulls the trigger and executes
the penalty. (Your mother may not be
the best option.)

As is the case with rewards, it’s best

if you make the punishments as
immediate as possible. If you’ve got a
long-term project, don’t just set one
large punishment in case of missing
the deadline. Setup punishments for
missing milestones as well.

I’m currently using a commitment

contract for finishing this book. I’ve
handed over $150 to my brother
Jonas and will only get it back when I
finish the first draft before Friday (it’s
now Tuesday).
Update: It didn’t work well at all.
“Finishing the first draft” wasn’t
specific enough — there was no way
for Jonas to determine whether I’d
upheld my commitment or not. And
because I knew that, I never felt any
pressure to work harder than usual.
Lesson learned: Make sure your
commitment is highly specific. Your
referee should know without a doubt
whether you’ve upheld your end of the
bargain.

Chapter Summary
The idea: The monkey in your brain
operates on the simple principle of
approaching what feels good (the
carrot) and avoiding what feels bad
(the stick). We can use this knowledge
to our advantage by making desirable
activities more attractive while making
distractions and time-wasters less
attractive. The result? Less
procrastination.

The tactics

Promise Yourself a Reward:

Attaching rewards to aversive tasks

makes them more attractive for the

monkey. In turn, you’ll experience less
resistance toward the task. As an
example, you can reward yourself
with a delicious protein smoothie after
a hard workout session.

Temptation Bundling: Adding an

enticing temptation to an aversive

task allows you to make the task more

appealing to the monkey. As a result,
you’ll feel less resistant toward the
task. A common example is to
exercise while listening to your favorite
podcast.

Make Procrastination Pay: You can

use so-called commitment contracts to
associate massive pain with
procrastinating on a specific task. This
will increase your motivation and can
all but guarantee you’ll get the
dreaded task done. An example could
be giving your friend $500 and only
getting it back if you show up at his
door to exercise on time. Ifyou don’t
show up (you procrastinate), you lose
the money.

WHY YOUR
GRANNY

DOESN’T
PROCRASTINATE
— THE
ALARMING
LINK BETWEEN
TECHNOLOGY,
DISTRACTIONS,
AND
PROCRASTINATION
Robin Sharma, a leadership coach
and bestselling author, sums up
modern world perfectly:

“We live in The Age of Dramatic

Distraction. Many shiny toys to chase
every waking moment yet so few of
those pursuits create real value and
grow a life brilliantly lived.

Too many of us are overscheduled,

overconnected and overstimulated by
all the noise, interruptions and
complexity of current society. The
cost of this way of operating? You’ll
your final
arrive at the last hour of day
and realize you spent your highest
potential on your lowest leverage
activities.”

The average American worker on an

average day spends 2.1 hours in
distraction, is interrupted every 11
minutes, watches 4.7 hours of TV,
checks email every six minutes, and
spends a total of 1.72 hours on email.
In the 1970s, 4-5% of people
indicated that they considered

themselves as procrastinators; today

that number is at 20-25% — a
five-fold increase over the span of a
few decades.

What caused that epic rise in

procrastination?

You guessed it — modern-day

distractions such as Facebook, email,
smartphones, video games, TV
shows, and so on.

Piers Steel, a procrastination

researcher and author of The

Procrastination Equation, says this

about the relationship between
distractions and procrastination:
“…proximity to temptation is
one of the deadliest determinants of
procrastination. [And] the more
enticing the distraction, the less work
we do.”

The relationship between distractions

and procrastination can be illustrated
with the following graph (taken from
The Procrastination Equation).
 (not sure if
big enough)

The solid line represents the work

curve, which swoops up as the due

date comes closer and closer. This

shows that we tend to become
increasingly more motivated the closer
the deadline comes.
The dashed horizontal lines represent
temptations. The higher the dashed
lines go, the more enticing the
temptations are and the more
motivated we become to pursue them.

In this model, we procrastinate for as

long as our work motivation is lower
than our temptation motivation. Once
the deadline is close enough, we
become more motivated to work than
to pursue a temptation — we stop
procrastinating and start working.

As the graph shows, more enticing

temptations lead to more
procrastination.

In this way, the model beautifully

illustrates how our modern world sets
us up for failure.

Modern life creates more more

and
temptations, while at the same time
making them more and more
attractive. Put another way, modern
life creates more and more dashed
lines while also moving them higher
and higher. The solid bar, on the other
hand, hasn’t seen any changes over
the last decades. The pleasure derived
from work is still the same as in the
recent past.

To sum up: Temptations become

more attractive while work starts
looking increasingly boring and dull
compared to them. The result?
Procrastination.
If we look at this relationship, it
becomes obvious why we’ve seen
such an epic rise in procrastination
since the 1970s.

Of course people in the 1970s didn’t

procrastinate as much... What were
they going to do with their time,
anyway? was no internet, no
There
smartphones, no video games, no
Gameboys, no iPod, no iPad, no
Facebook, no Instagram, no
Snapchat…

Today, the internet alone is a candy

land for procrastinators. In fact, it’s
now estimated that over 50% of time
spent online is time spent
procrastinating.
The only technology-driven distraction

And even then, it’s not comparable to

today. TVs in the 1970s didn’t have
500 channels. They didn’t have high
definition. They didn’t have the ability
to record everything. They didn’t have
the ability to buy movies or TV series.
They didn’t have any features to skip
forwards or backwards.

My dad once told me that when he

was a kid, the only program running

on p.m. was “ants racing.”

TV after 10
There was simply no signal, and the
only thing you saw when switching on
the TV was a mixture of black and
white dots, which, to my father,
looked like ants racing.
It’s abundantly clear that modern-day,
technology-driven distractions are a
major enabler of procrastination.

It’s hard to meditate, exercise, read,

or study when you could be watching
TV, playing video games, or surfing
the web. What do you think is more
attractive to the monkey?
Oh, and the problem will only get

worse.

The entertainment industry isn’t

exactly resting on their laurels. They

keep refining their video games, online

experiences, and TV features to make
them more and more attractive and
more and more addictive. And they’re
doing a great job at it — at the cost of
dical, but it works. If you
want to even have a chance of
overcoming procrastination and getting
serious work done, you need to learn
how to handle the allure of
distractions.

In the remainder of this chapter, we’ll

look at three specific ways to do
exactly that.

TRY THIS: Eliminate or

Complicate
How often would you check Instagram

ifyou could only access it on the roof

of your house? Less often.

But you don’t need to go to your roof

to access Instagram, Facebook, video
games, TVs, etc., do you?

The problem is most distractions are

way too accessible. They’re literally
available to us in an instant.

Remember what we said earlier:

Proximity to temptation is one of the
deadliest determinants of
procrastination. we want to
If
procrastinate less, we need to make
distractions less readily accessible.
We need to either completely
eliminate a distraction, or complicate
its access.

The good news is that’s not hard to

do at all. Here are some suggestions.

Block distracting websites. I’m

talking about Facebook, Instagram,
Snapchat, 9GAG, Gmail, news sites,
and so on. You can block them on
your laptop or computer using tools
such as Cold Turkey. This tool allows
you to schedule which websites you
want to block and when. I personally
find it very helpful. You can also block
certain websites on your smartphone (I
use an app called Trend Micro™
Mobile Security).

Delete distracting apps on your

smartphone. I used to spend hours
every day playing games, checking
Facebook, or watching YouTube
videos on my phone. Nowadays,
distracting apps aren’t even on my
phone anymore — I just deleted them.
It’s radical, but it works.
Delete your computer games.
During my high school years, I was
addicted to an online game called
Demigod. I spent well over 100,000
minutes playing that game, and I can
tell you one thing: I never
procrastinated more in my life than
during those years. If you’re serious
about overcoming your
procrastination any online or
issues,
computer game has to go. (At least
temporarily. Consider it a form of
rehab with the possibility of
re-introducing some games back into
your life at a later point in time.)

Sell your Nintendo Wii, Xbox,

PlayStation, etc. And if that’s too

much, at least put them somewhere

you don’t see them. (As you’re about
to learn in the next tactic, “out of sight,
out of mind” is a good motto.)

While these strategies aren’t

bulletproof, they will at least make it a
lot harder for you to give in to
temptations. Instead of opening your
browser, typing “Fa,” and entering
Facebook, you now have to go into
your website-disabling tool and
somehow find a way to enable
Facebook again.

The harder you make distractions to

access, the less you’ll procrastinate.

TRY THIS: Mold Your

Environment
You’ve probably heard of priming

before.

It states that everything in our

environment unconsciously triggers

an action or behavior in us.

Sexy images can trigger the urge to

have sex. The smell of cake can
trigger feelings of hunger. Putting
sweets on someone’s desk in a clear,
rather than opaque bowl increases
snacking. Watching people being
friendly can make us kinder and more
altruistic.

Certain thingsyour environment

in
can trigger the urge to procrastinate,
while other things can trigger you to
work on your goals and stop putting
things off.

To procrastinate less, we need to

mold our environment so that it

triggers us to work more. Anything that

needs to go. Anything that could

trigger the action of working is
welcome and can stay.
Here are some ideas on how to

incorporate this into your life.

Declutter your browser. Every

visible hotlink or bookmark can trigger
unwanted goals that distract you from
doing what needs to get done. Your
browser should be as empty as
possible. No bookmark bar. No other
visible bookmarks. No visible hotlinks.
No website suggestions when you
open a new tab (I use the “Empty
New Tab Page” Chrome extension).
Your browser should not have any
visible triggers at all.

Declutter your desktop. Same story.

Quick launch icons and shortcuts can
unconsciously trigger you to activate
goals that are neither urgent nor
important. Your desktop should be as
clean and simplistic as possible. For
instance, my desktop is a nature
wallpaper with one folder that I’ve
creatively titled “Desktop.”

Put that phone away. Turn it off

completely, or at least put it in
airplane mode (remember, the harder
you make distractions to access, the
less you’ll procrastinate). And please
put your phone out of sight somehow.
If you see it from where you are
working, you’ll always be
unconsciously primed to have a quick
glance. No, it won’t be “just a minute!”

Eliminate all notifications. Every

notification on your phone, laptop, or
computer can distract you and trigger
the urge to procrastinate. Go into your
settings and eliminate all notifications.

Declutter your work and living

space. A disorganized, cluttered, and
messy space is like a minefield of
potential distractions and unconscious
you want to get work
goal triggers. If
done, you can’t have your Xbox,
smartphone, gym bag, books, and
magazines all screaming for your
attention. To procrastinate less,
radically declutter your work and living
space. Remove those triggers — out
of sight, out of mind is the maxim.

Fill your environment with work

triggers. What do you associate with
your goals? What motivates you to
get work done? What could
unconsciously activate your goals? If
the end of the week.
it
on your nightstand. If you want to
write on a work project, put relevant
material on your desk. If you want to
feel more calm and mindful, put a
small Buddha statue on your desk. If
you want to feel inspired and
motivated, fill your environment with
images of some of your heroes. There
are endless possibilities, and you can
use anything as a trigger — quotes,
Post-It notes, images, and so on.

You can either create an environment

that supports your goals, or one that
entices you to procrastinate. Your
choice.
TRY THIS: Make
Distractions Pay
Just like you can use commitment

contracts to get your work done on

time (see previous chapter), you can
use them to make distractions less
appealing.

Ifyou must pay $500 every time you

play a video game, you’ll stop playing
it immediately.

If you’re serious about overcoming

procrastination, this strategy can do
wonders. Think about your worst
temptations and create commitment
contracts for them.
Let’s take Facebook, for example.
You could say that you allow yourself

15 minutes every day to spend on

Facebook. Every additional minute
costs you $10.

To set up a contract like that, you

could do the following:

1) Download a tool called Rescue

Time, which shows you your browsing
activity.

2) Give a friend of yours, your mother,

or someone else you trust $100 or any
other amount of money.

3) Tell your trusted partner that you’ll

only get your money back if you send
them a screenshot of Rescue Time at
4) Tell them to
trigger us to procr
keep $10 for every additional minute
you spent on Facebook.

It’s by no means a perfect system, but

it’ll do the trick.

You can also use other third-party

websites and tools to make this
process easier. You can use Covenant
Eyes (lets selected people see your
website activities), stickk.com (the
best website to create simple
commitment contracts), SnuzNluz
(makes you pay a certain amount of
money every time you hit the snooze
button), or Rescue Time (shows how
you spend your PC time).
If distractions are a big issue for you,
then I highly suggest setting up such
contracts. Otherwise, you’ll always
find a way to rationalize your
behavior. With a commitment contract,
those rationalizations disappear
immediately.

Chapter Summary

The idea: Distractions such as

Facebook, TV programs, or video
games are major enablers of
procrastination. Research shows that
the more enticing the distractions are,
the more we procrastinate.
Considering how attractive (downright
addictive!) modern distractions are,
it’s no wonder so many of us are
struggling with procrastination.

The tactics

Eliminate or Complicate: One

problem with modern distractions is
that they are too easily accessible. If
we want to procrastinate less, we
need to eliminate or complicate their
access. We can do that by blocking
distracting websites, deleting
distracting apps on our smartphones,
uninstalling computer games, or selling
our game consoles.

Mold Your Environment: Everything

in our environment has an
unconscious impact on us. Some
things trigger us to procrastinate,
others trigger us to work. We
want to remove anything that could
trigger procrastination from our
environment and fill it instead with
things that could trigger better
productivity. common examples
Some
we’ve discussed are eliminating
bookmarks, cleaning up your desktop,
putting your phone in airplane mode,
getting rid of notifications, and
decluttering your work and living
space.

Make Distractions Pay: By setting

up commitment contracts (e.g., “I’ll

pay $500 every time I check Instagram

before finishing my dissertation”), you
make distractions a lot less attractive.
In fact, you can make them so
unappealing that not even the
monkey wants anything to do with
AT

THE POWER
OF NICE —

WHY
SELF-CRITICISM
WON’T GET
YOU
ANYWHERE
AND WHAT
TO DO
INSTEAD
Do you ever criticize yourself for being

a procrastinator? Do you make

yourself feel bad if you fail to meet

your perfectionistic standards?

Do you beat yourself up mentally after

missing yet another deadline?

Welcome to the club! That’s called

self-criticism, and it’s what most
procrastinators are absolute pros at.
In fact, it’s something most people in
today’s society seem to be incredibly
good at.

But does self-criticism really work?

Does it do you any good? Does it help

you get better?

Nope.

Most of us have engaged in

self-criticism all of our lives… and if

we are to believe the statistics on

depression, suicide, happiness, and
general well-being, this way of relating
to ourselves hasn’t exactly been a
success. In fact, recent research has

shown that self-criticism is strongly

related to depression and

dissatisfaction with life. Self-critics are
compas attempt suicide than
others and experience more feelings
of anxiety, shame, insignificance, and
guilt. More surprisingly yet, research
has shown that the constant criticism
does not help individuals achieve
more financial or material success.
Ouch. Lots of negatives. No positives.

So, is there an alternative?

Indeed there is.

And it’s one that is far superior to

self-criticism.

According to the research, this

alternative is a powerful way to
achieve emotional well-being, stress
resiliency, and even financial success.
It has been shown that practicing this
alternative helps people avoid
destructive patterns of negativity, fear,
and isolation while helping them
experience more positive mental
states such as optimism, hope, and
happiness. Practitioners also benefit
from better relationships and are
more likely to achieve the goals they
set for themselves.

Most critically for our discussion, this

alternative has been shown to help
people procrastinate less. But I’m
getting ahead of myself.

So what’s this mysterious alternative?

It’s called self-compassion, and while

it may not be the manliest of tactics, it’s
definitely one of the most powerful
ones to have in your anti-
procrastination arsenal.

In this chapter, we’ll first discuss what

self-compassion is, exactly. Then we’ll
look at why self-criticism leads to
more procrastination while self-
compassion leads to less
procrastination. In the end, we’ll
discuss a practical approach you can
use to make use of this life-changing
information to curb your
procrastination tendencies.

What Exactly Is
Self-Compassion?
To understand self-compassion, we

Compassion.com defines it as follows:

“Compassion means ‘to suffer with’
and is an response of
emotional
sympathy. But it’s not just a feeling.
The feeling is combined with a desire
to help. Because we have
compassion, we want to take action
and help the person who is suffering.”

Compassion is a feeling that arises

when you’re confronted withsomeone
else’s suffering, combined with a
desire or motivation to relieve that
suffering.

From a biological standpoint,

compassion results in a slowing down
of our heart rate, secretion of the
“bonding hormone” oxytocin, and
activation of brain regions linked to
caregiving, empathy, and feelings of
pleasure. These biological changes
result in our wanting to approach and
care for the suffering being.

You may experience compassion

when your daughter comes home with

a bad grade, when you hear news of a

disaster, when your spouse is
struggling with a cold, or when your
best friend just got divorced.

In each of these cases, you will likely

feel warmth, sympathy, and the desire
to help the suffering being in
whatever way possible. You will treat
the individual with love and kindness,
rather than judgment.

Self-compassion involves acting the

same way toward yourself when
you’re having a hard time, when you
experience failure, or when you notice
something you dislike about yourself.

Instead of ignoring or suppressing

your suffering, you acknowledge it.
Instead of criticizing yourself for your
inadequacies and shortcomings, you
comfort and care for yourself. You
treat yourself with love, warmth,
patience, and understanding.

Self-compassion means to recognize

your own suffering and do your best to
alleviate it.

For our purposes, we’ll just look at

self-compassion as the opposite of

self-criticism. It’s about treating

ourselves like a nice person, rather
 called se cause. It’s about
forgiveness and understanding,
rather than criticism and judgment.

Let’s now discuss why self-criticism

leads to more procrastination, and

why self-compassion leads to less

procrastination.

Why Self-Criticism Leads

to Procrastination
Whenever I talk to people about

self-compassion, they raise the notion

that becoming more

self-compassionate will somehow
make them complacent and
self-indulgent.
In reality, the opposite is true. But I
see where that notion is coming

from... Self-criticism can work as a

motivator through the mechanism of
fear.

Because it’s so unpleasant to be

harshly criticized by ourselves when
we fail, we naturally want to avoid that.
We become motivated by the desire
to escape self-judgment. It’s like a kid
being motivated by the fear of getting
beaten by his father. While
self-judgment may not be physically
painful, the emotional pain can often
be immense.

The underlying thought process goes

like this: “If I can’t get myself to do this,
then I’ll get a terrible mental beating
later on. I really need to force myself to
do this, otherwise I’ll feel guilty,
disappointed, ashamed, and so on.”

While this approach works to a certain

extent, it comes with some serious
drawbacks.

To begin with, those threats create

heaps of stress and anxiety, both of
which can severely impact
performance. This is well-known as
performance anxiety, which has been
shown to be a performance-killer by
distracting people from their task and
interfering with their ability to focus.
Contrary to popular belief, pressure
does not improve performance, but
rather undermines it.

In addition to that, self-criticism leads

to a peculiar phenomenon called self-
handicapping, a kind of self-sabotage
in
order to save face in case of failure.
We tend to do that so that if we fail, we
can avoid feeling unworthy by
blaming failure on not having enough
time, not trying hard enough, or not
caring enough.

It’s a behavior I used to engage in all

the time during high school. You see, I
always thought of myself as one of
the smartest kids. And because I
wanted to uphold that image, I
couldn’t risk studying hard for an
exam and failing. After all, that would
have meant I wasn’t that smart, and
frankly, my ego couldn’t take that. So I
self-handicapped by never properly
studying a test. Whenever I got a
for
bad or average grade, I blamed it on
my lack of studying. (Needless to say,
this kind of self-sabotage didn’t
exactly help me reach my full
potential.)

Procrastination, it turns out, is also a

form of self-handicapping.

And guess what? Self-criticism tends

to be the driving force behind it. Kristin
Neff, a leading self-compassion and
mindfulness researcher, explains the
link in her book Self-Compassion:

“Research indicates that self-critics

are less likely to achieve their goals
because of these sorts of
self-handicapping strategies. In one
study, for instance, college students
were asked to describe their various
academic, social, and health-related
goals, and then to report on how
much progress they had made toward
these goals. Self-critics made
significantly less progress toward their
goals than others and also reported
that they procrastinated more often.”

Self-critics make significantly less

progress toward their goals and report
procrastinating more often.

This finding goes hand-in-hand with

another study I’ve recently come
across in Kelly McGonigal’s book The
Willpower Instinct. She writes:

“Consider, for example, a study at

Carleton University in Ottawa,
Canada, that tracked the
procrastination of students over an
entire semester. Lots of students put
off studying for the first exam, but not
every student made it a habit.
Students who were harder on
themselves for procrastinating on
their firstexam were more likely to
procrastinate on later exams than
who forgave themselves. The
harder they were on themselves
about procrastinating the first time, the
longer they procrastinated for the next
exam! Forgiveness — not guilt —
helped them get back on track.”

This bears repeating: the harder they

were on themselves about
procrastinating the first time, the
longer they procrastinated for the
next exam. Forgiveness — not guilt —
helped them get back on track.

If you want to keep your

procrastination habit going, make

sure to continually beat yourself up

over any flaws and shortcomings you
might have. Bring on the guilt and
self-punishment, and harshly criticize
yourself at every opportunity you get.

The point is this: Self-criticism leads

to more procrastination.

Far from being a source of motivation,

it only makes things worse and keeps
adding fuel to your procrastination
habit.
So, what about self-compassion?

Why Self-Compassion
Leads to Less
Procrastination
Research has shown over and over
again that self-compassion increases
motivation, performance, health,
success, and almost any other aspect
of life in multiple ways.

To keep things short here, we’ll just

focus on one way in which self-
compassion increases productivity
and reduces procrastination: reduced
fear of failure.

Self-compassionate people
experience far less fear of failure than
their self-critical peers. They basically
know that they’ll be fine in spite of
failure. They don’t need to
fear self-punishment because they
don’t engage in self-punishing behavior.
When they fail, they forgive and
console themselves. They build
themselves back up. They support
Research
negative emotions, it’s
shows that self-compassionate
people see failure as something
positive, as a learning opportunity.
They simply take it as feedback,
applaud themselves for trying, and
get back on track.

For self-compassionate people,

failing, taking risks, and getting on the
playing field is something to be
embraced, rather than feared. It’s an
opportunity for growth, not a measure
of self-worth.

And because self-compassionate

people don’t fear failure, they’re able

to take more action and risks. They

don’t need to self-handicap because
their self-worth isn’t at risk in the first
place. They’re okay with who they
are, and they don’t equate their
worthiness with their successes or
failures.

Self-compassion creates a safe

environment, allowing us to try out
and risk things without being stressed
and anxious about getting punished in
case of failure. It basically allows you
to operate from a place of confidence,
calm, and security. When you operate
from that place of safety, you’re not as
afraid of failure, and so there’s no
reason to self-sabotage and
procrastinate to save your ego.

Oh, and this isn’t just “feel-good talk.”

Kristin Neff presents rock-solid science
proving that self-compassionate
people procrastinate less than their
self-critical peers in her book
Self-Compassion.

My own experience fully supports

these findings. Treating myself in a
more compassionate way and
forgiving myself for my mistakes
(procrastination- related or otherwise)
has made a huge difference in my life.
Back in my self-critical days, I’d wake
up in the morning, already feeling a bit
anxious about the day ahead. I was
scared of what was going to happen if I
didn’t live up to my expectations. I
knew that if I wasn’t highly productive,
I’d give myself a terrible mental
beating and burden myself with a
debilitating amount of guilt.

My emotional life was filled with

anxiety, disappointment, shame, and

guilt. Considering what we know about

the impact of negative emotions, it’s
obvious why I kept procrastinating
and couldn’t get anything done. While
I was wrestling my negative
with
self-talk, the monkey was running the
Self-compassion has freed me
from a lot of these toxic emotions, and
with that, it has made me a lot more
productive.

For one thing, I’m no longer terribly

afraid of having an unproductive day. I
know that I’ll be fine and can live with
myself whether I’m as productive as I’d
like to be or not.

Most importantly, self-compassion

has almost completely eliminated the
guilt I feel when catching myself
procrastinating. Instead of wallowing
in shame and self-pity, I now forgive
myself move on with life. I get
and
back on track a lot more quickly and
can perform from a space of safety
and calm.
It’s hard to put in words just how
powerful self-compassion can be

when overcoming procrastination.

Like I said, it’s made a massive

difference my own life, and I highly
in
suggest giving this a try in yours.

With that being said, how exactly can

you harness the powers of self-
compassion to overcome
procrastination? Here’s one
the
specific strategy I suggest you start
using…

TRY THIS: Forgive

Yourself
Our natural tendency is to get all
self-critical after procrastinating.

We give ourselves a hard time, make

ourselves feel terrible, and basically
bathe ourselves in a soup of guilt,
shame, disappointment,
discouragement, self-pity, and other
negative emotions.

Not only do these negative emotions

feel terrible, they also make it almost
impossible to get anything worthwhile
done. Why? Because the monkey in
our head can’t stand the negativity
and wants to numb itself by engaging
in distractions like Facebook, TV,
video games, or the like.
The moment you stop distracting
yourself, you’re exposed to the
negative emotions and the whole
nonsense begins all over again.

As we’ve discussed, beating yourself

up after procrastinating only makes
things worse.

What you need to do instead is

forgive yourself.

Realize that procrastination inevitably

happens from time to time.

That’s okay. That’s natural.

It happens to all of us. No need to get

all worked up about it. You tried, you
did your best, and it didn’t work out
this time. And of course, it’s okay to
feel a little bit guilty and dissatisfied.
That’s normal. Instead of suppressing
these emotions, just let them be
there. Resolve to do better next time.

If you want, you can even consider

actively consoling yourself. Give
yourself a bit of a hug. Give yourself a
pep talk. Treat yourself likeyou would
treat a good friend in the same
situation.

The goal is to forgive yourself and

build yourself back up.

This allows you to bring some positive

emotions of warmth, care, and love
into the picture. Slowly but surely,
those positive emotions displace the
negative ones and before you know it,
the monkey has gone back into its
cave and you’re able to take effective
action once again.

Chapter Summary

The idea: Research clearly shows

that self-criticism leads to more
procrastination while self-compassion

overcome procrastination, stop

unfairly criticizing yourself and instead
treat yourself with warmth, love,
kindness, and understanding.

The tactics

Forgive Yourself: Each act of

procrastination can be used to
practice forgiveness and
self-compassion. Next time you fall
short of your lofty aspirations and are
about to beat yourself up, stop and
remember what we talked about here.
Instead of giving yourself a mental
beating, forgive yourself as best you
can. Remember, it’s natural to
procrastinate from time to time. It’s
okay. We all do it. Human life is hard.
It’s okay to feel bad, guilty, sad, or
whatever. That’s also natural. Treat
yourself like you would treat a good
friend and resolve to do better next
time.

THE ART
OF EMOTION
SURFING —
HOW TO DO
WHAT NEEDS
TO GET
DONE…
NO
MATTER
WHAT.
The more I observe procrastination in
my life, the more I realize just how
much it has to do with emotion
management.

Whether we see it or not, it’s always

the same story.

1) We don’t feel like doing the difficult

thing.

2) We end up doing something else

that feels better.

This tends to play out well below the

our conscious awareness,

level of
covered up by reasonable sounding
excuses and rationalizations of a
pleasure-seeking monkey.

We’ve discussed this in chapter one,

but it bears repeating: Procrastination
is always, always, always the story of
negative emotions getting in our way.
For starters, we procrastinate on
tasks that inspire negative feelings in

us — tasks that are boring,

overwhelming, frustrating, important,

or difficult. Furthermore, we
procrastinate the most when we’re in

a bad mood — when we’re angry, sad,

disappointed, or feeling guilty.

It doesn’t matter where the negative

emotions come from. Once they’re

there, the monkey shows up and

urges us to run away from what feels

uncomfortable and toward immediate
gratification. Before we know it, we’ve
wasted another day satisfying the
monkey’s addiction to pleasure.

If we want to overcome
procrastination, we need to get better
at emotion management. We need to
make a drastic change in our
relationship with emotions and instead
of being at their mercy, we need to
get back in control.

In this chapter, we’ll look at a fantastic

way of doing that. But first, a little more

about emotions and their relationship

to behavior.

Slaves of Our Emotions

(different kind of header?)
Most people in our society tend to

have a very childish, one-way

relationship with feelings.

They feel a certain way and then act

 accordingly.

Feeling first. Behavior second.

When they feel angry, they lash out at

others. When they feel anxious, they

retreat. When they feel sad, they
crawl into their bed. When they feel
superior, they misconduct. When they

feel inferior, they shut up. It’s as if

they’re just blindly taking orders.

Who cares if their commitments,

values, or goals say otherwise? If

they feel a certain way, they act it out

without much of a second thought. We

keep preaching how much we value

freedom our society. Yet when it

in
comes to our own behavior, we seem
will always feel like runnin
Ironic, isn’t it?

Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be that

way. We don’t have to act out
whatever behavior our feelings invite
us to. Feelings aren’t destiny.

In scientific literature, feelings are said

to exhibit something an action
called
tendency. When weangry, we
feel
have the tendency to clench our fists,
shout, and lash out physically or
verbally.

The key word here is tendency. We

may a certain way, but
feel like acting
that doesn’t mean we have to act that
way. We can feel afraid, but act
courageously. We can feel
discouraged, but keep going. We can
feel angry, but act calmly. We can feel
like procrastinating, but perform the
task anyway.

I’m sure you’ve experienced many

examples of this in your own life. You
may have felt tired and unmotivated,
but still managed to finish your
dissertation. You may have been
afraid of asking that special someone
out, but you found a way despite that.

The point is that while feelings

undeniably influence your behavior,

they shouldn’t dictate it.

You can act a way, whether

certain
you feel like it or not. You can do
what’s right, important, or valuable,
whether you feel like it or not.
This ability — doing what needs to
get done regardless of how we’re
feeling — is the core of overcoming
procrastination. The better we get at
this skill, the less we will struggle with
putting things off.

Why? Because ultimately,

procrastination comes down to the

all-important moment of facing a task,

experiencing the pain and negative
emotions associated with it, and then
either running away or getting on with
the task anyway.

Let’s face it, the unfortunate truth is

that certain tasks will always make us
feel uncomfortable insome way. We
will always feel like running away from
what’s difficult and toward what’s
easier.
We can’t change that. If we strive to
live a life of meaning, adventure, and
growth, it’s a given.

What we can change is our response.

We can stop blindly following our

urges, impulses, and tendencies to
act a certainway. We can become the
type of person who follows through
with their intentions, whether they’re
motivated or not.

We can get comfortable feeling

uncomfortable. We can get things

done in spite of experiencing fear,

frustration, boredom, or being
overwhelmed.
That’s what it means to be a mature
human being. David K. Reynolds puts
it well in his book Constructive Living:

“The mature human being goes about

doing what needs to be done
regardless of whether that person
feels great or terrible. Knowing that
you are the kind of person with that
kind of self-control brings all the
satisfaction and confidence you will
ever need. Even on days when the
satisfaction and confidence just aren’t
there, you can get the job done
anyway.”

Once we understand the importance

of this skill, it’s time to face another
truth.
It won’t be as easy as I’ve made it

sound.

Action tendencies of strong emotions

are incredibly hard to resist — that’s
why so many of us are struggling with
anger issues, depression, internet
addiction, and of course,
procrastination.

As far as procrastination is
concerned, the action tendency is

always the same: run away. Abandon

the task and do something that feels
better.

So far we’ve referred to this tendency

as the monkey’s pull toward immediate
gratification. We’ve also briefly
touched on it in chapter three — when
we contemplate a we
difficult task,
literally feel pain, and because our
natural response to pain is to run
The
question is, how can we handle this
urge to run away — to procrastinate?

The strategy we’re about to learn will

help us. It’s a mindfulness-based
technique called urge surfing or
emotion surfing and was originally
discovered by Eastern traditions and
religions, where it has been used for
thousands of years.

Nowadays, it’s a scientifically studied

intervention that has successfully
helped people overcome addictions,
quell anxiety, relieve depression,
reduce pain, bring about emotional
stability, and much more.

This tactic has been an absolute

game-changer in my life, and I’m

positive it can do similar things for you

as well. Please don’t get put off by its s
implicity.

TRY THIS: Surf Your

Emotions
Let’s say you come home from work
and decide to write some more of

your novel.

As soon as you contemplate the idea,

you feel the action tendency to run
away, the pull toward immediate
gratification, the urge to procrastinate.
What now? How do you handle this?
How do you prevent yourself from
procrastinating?

The first, most crucial step is to stay

put.

Don’t react.

Don’t move an inch.

Instead, slow down and watch what’s

happening. Observe the sensations in
your body. You’ll likely feel
uncomfortable doing this. You may
even experience some pain.

That’s okay. It’s normal.

After a minute or two, you’ll realize

that you’re able to tolerate the
negative emotions. You’re not going to
die. And nothing terrible is happening
to you.

Even better, you’ll make the

marvelous discovery that the negative
emotions lose some of their power
over you. And the urge to run away?
It’s also losing some of its strength.

You see, urges are kind of like waves.

A wave starts off small and builds
gently. Then it gradually gathers
speed and grows bigger. It keeps
growing and moving forward until it
reaches its peak, known as the crest.
Once the wave has crested, it
gradually subsides. Urges do the
same thing. They start off small, slowly
increase in size until they crest, and
then subside.

If you are able to stay with an urge to

procrastinate for just a few minutes,
the strength of it will decrease quickly,
making it much easier to handle.

Staying put and accepting negative

emotions is often all it takes to beat
procrastination. After a short while,
the emotions will have lost most of
their power, and you are able to take
effective action in spite of them.

The key to making this strategy work

is to accept the emotions just as they
are. Don’t try to suppress them, vent
them, or otherwise change or get rid of
them. Just accept them. Don’t
struggle. Just let them be there, watch
them, and welcome them. Stay with
the sensations, make peace with
them until they dissolve, and then take
action.

And that’s it. That’s the whole

technique.

While it may sound simple and naïve,

it’s incredibly effective. Thousands of
years of history and countless
scientific studies don’t lie. Give it a try
and you’ll discover it for yourself.

But first, know that there’s a catch…

To be able to use this technique in the

first place requires quite a bit of

awareness.

You can’t use it when you haven’t

realized you are or have been
that
procrastinating. When you go to bed
at night and realize you should have
been studying, it’s too late.

This is a technique to be used on the

battlefield, not in the aftermath. The
technique requires that you become
aware of your own procrastination
before the battle is over and lost. The
earlier, the better.

That’s why awareness is so crucial.

Without it, you’ll never get the chance

to change your destiny. You can’t even
see what’s going on. You just act out
your autopilot tendencies and
impulses. You’re like the Hulk, who
only realizes what damage he’s done
when Bruce Banner “wakes up” and
it’s already over.

Don’t be like that. Live with

awareness. The great Socrates once
said, “The unaware life is not worth
living.”

Anthony De Mello goes one step

further in his book Awareness,

stating: “The unaware life is a

mechanical life. It’s not human, it’s
programmed, conditioned. We might
as well be a stone, a block of wood.”

Anyway, I know this may sound a bit

philosophical, so let’s get back to the
practical applications for overcoming
procrastination. Up next is an example
that will illustrate the relationship
between awareness and urge surfing
and how it can help you beat
procrastination.

Let’s use an example we’re all too

familiar with: studying. Your upcoming
exams are important, so you’re really
motivated. As you’re making your way
to your desk, however, you’re
experiencing weird sensations of
tension, resistance, and anxiety. You
feel a sudden urge to check your
email, watch TV, clean the room, or
do anything else but study.
Unfortunately, you’re not consciously
aware that this is happening, and
before you know it, you’ve been
associated with the dreaded task. A

Suddenly you realize what just

happened — you become aware of
your procrastination. You still have
enough time. No big deal.

Thankfully, your awareness is spot-on

this time. You realize that you’ve given
in to immediate gratification and
forsaken your long-term goals. You
realize that studying conjures up
negative emotions in you and that
you’re feeling guilty for wasting an
hour of your precious time. You also
realize that you’re still experiencing the
urge to run away from studying and
engage in something more enjoyable.

Even better, you remember the

practice of urge surfing you’ve learnt
in this book. Instead of letting your
emotions get the better of you, you
start slowing down. Your resist the
urge to run away and simply stay put.
You observe the negative emotions in
you and experience your bodily
sensations in a nonjudgmental way,
without trying to change anything.
You let everything just be as it is. It’s
all good. You’re accepting that you’re
feeling this way right now.

After about 30 seconds, you

remember how important your
upcoming exams are. You also
remember that you’ll immediately feel
better once you’ve actually started
studying. Equipped with that
knowledge, you make your way to
your desk, sit down, and throw
yourself at your studies.

Five minutes in, the negative feelings

have evaporated almost completely.
You start feeling better about yourself.
You’re motivated. The subject is
actually quite interesting. After a
while, you realize you’re making great
progress and start feeling even better
about yourself, even more motivated
to rock the upcoming exams.

And that’s it.

That’s a simple illustration of how you

can combine awareness and urge
surfing as a powerful intervention for
overcoming procrastination.

It always works thesame way. You

need to become aware that you have
been procrastinating or that you are
about to procrastinate. Then you need
to accept any negative feelings
associated with the dreaded task. And
then you need to take action and just

Awareness and emotion surfing.

That’s all you theoretically need. But

because we’re all suffering from a

lack of awareness and a weak emotion
surfing ability, we can also greatly
benefit from all the other strategies
discussed in this book.

Before we wrap this up, there’s one

last thing I want to address… What

About Thoughts?
So far, I’ve focused strictly on
feelings. But what about thoughts?

Here’s where they enter the picture.

Whenever you experience negative
emotions, your monkey starts creating
one excuse after another designed to
convince you to abandon future
interests and give in to immediate
gratification.

These excuses often sound

superficially reasonable. In reality,

however, they are all interchangeable,

recurrent, and only serve the purpose
of abandoning anything that’s even
remotely uncomfortable for something
that feels better immediately.

Some of the most common excuses

for procrastinating are:
• “I’ll feel more like it tomorrow!”

• “I work better under pressure.”

• “I’m too tired. I’ll do it when I

have more energy.”

• “There’s even more work after

this. I can never get it all done.”

• “Damnit! I should have started

earlier. Now it’s too late. I might as

well give up.”

• “I need some more preparation

before I can start.”

• “I’ll feel more like doing it after

another cup of coffee.”

• “I’m too jittery to get work done.

I shouldn’t have drank that last cup of

coffee.”

• “It’s already 4 p.m. Now it’s too

late to start. I’ll just do it tomorrow.”

• “Today is Sunday. It’s okay to

rest and do nothing. I’ll just do it

 tomorrow.”

• “I’m not motivated. Let me

Google how to increase motivation.”

• “I can’t concentrate today. It

would be a waste of time trying to get

anything done.”

Sound familiar?

When trying to overcome

procrastination, it’s best to just ignore

these kinds of thoughts.

Don’t take them so seriously. If you

look closely, most thoughts are
actually useless anyway — just the
ramblings of a pleasure-addicted
monkey.
“I’m too tired. Let’s watch TV!”

“I don’t feel like it. Let’s go on

Facebook!”

“This is boring. Let’s play video

games!”
Of course the monkey wants to watch
TV, go on Facebook, and play video
games. Of course it will tell you to
abandon your dreams and aspirations
of a better future. We can expect that.

Here’s the secret: You don’t need to

listen to the monkey. You don’t need to
follow its orders.

Let the monkey cry itself out. Let it

throw its tantrums. Let it revolt.

What’s the problem? You don’t take

orders from a spoiled child, do you?

Let the monkey do its thing. You do

yours.

Just allow thoughts and emotions to

be there. Accept them. Acknowledge
them. And take effective action
regardless.

Chapter Summary

The idea: We procrastinate because

we don’t feel like it. We let negative
emotions get in the way and then
follow our monkey’s pull toward doing
something that feels better.
Overcoming procrastination is about
realizing that we’re not at the mercy of
our thoughts and emotions. It’s about
realizing that we can do the right thing
whether we feel like it or not. It’s about
learning to do the right thing no
matter what.

The tactics
Surf Your Emotions: Next time you
experience negative emotions and feel
the urge to run toward immediate
gratification, stop and slow down.
Don’t do anything. For 30-60 seconds,

thoughts and emotions. Just watch

what’s happening. Just feel the
sensations in your urge
body. Let the
ride itself out. After about a minute or
so, you’ll find that the urge has lost
much of his power. You’re able to
overcome those negative emotions

THE SCIENCE
OF
WILLPOWER
— WHY IT’S
THE SECRET
TO

OVERCOMING
PROCRASTINATION

AND LIVING
 A HEALTHY,
HAPPY, AND
SUCCESSFUL
LIFE
Procrastination can be defined as a
form of willpower failure. We can also

call it self-regulation failure,

self-control failure, self-discipline

failure, or whatever-else-people-call-it
failure.

The issue is that you want to study

more, finish projects on time, get up

earlier, or exercise regularly. The
desire is there, but you can’t get
yourself to make these things happen.
In other words, you fail to regulate
your behavior.

Procrastination shares this fate with

many other self-regulation problems,

such as excessive gambling,
overeating, drinking too much, and
reckless spending.

The issue is always the same. The

monkey is pulling you in all the wrong

directions, but you lack the willpower
to veto it.
More often than not, the reason we
fail to regulate our behavior comes
down to negative emotions. That’s
why the last chapter taught you a
powerful skill to deal with negative
emotions, helping you to better
regulate your behavior in spite of them.

In this chapter, we’re going to dive

deeper into the science of self-
regulation and willpower.

Since overcoming procrastination

ultimately comes down to willpower —
every time you resist the urge to
procrastinate is an act of willpower —
it is incredibly helpful to learn more
about how it works and how to get
better at it.

Any improvement in your overall

self-control directly translates into less
procrastination.

The better you get at willpower, the

less you’ll struggle with

procrastination.

The good news is that willpower is

very much subject to change. If you’re
willing to put in the necessary time
and effort, you can strengthen your
willpower significantly. In other words,
you can become much more self-
disciplined.

I can offer a great personal example.

For most of my life, my self-discipline
has been an utter and complete joke.
I couldn’t get myself to study for
exams, I couldn’t get up on time, I
couldn’t stop playing my favorite video
game a.m., and I couldn’t stop
until 4
getting drunk every weekend. Heck, I
could barely sign up for university
classes on time!

Without a huge amount of outside

pressure, I literally couldn’t get myself

to do anything, not even the simplest

things like throwing away old milk
cartons, cleaning dirty dishes, or
washing my sweaty gym clothes that
had been stinking up my room for
weeks.

Looking back, I wonder how I ever got

anything done at all.

Today, things look a whole lot better.

My room is always orderly. I get up on
time every day. I haven’t used the
snooze function on my phone in over
year. I’m meditating daily. I’m taking
cold showers daily. I’m exercising
multiple times a week. I read about
100 books a year. I eat healthy. I do
the dishes right after eating or cooking.

I pay my bills on time. And so on. I’m

not telling you that to impress you. I

just want to show you that it’s possible

to go from almost zero self-control to
a level that allows you to live a healthy,
happy, and inspired life.

And don’t get me wrong. I still

struggle a lot.

But the number of unwelcome

surprises, worried nights, and the

frequency of crippling stress and

anxiety I experienced along with
procrastination have been drastically
reduced.

So, what can you do to improve your

self-control?

We’ll get to that in a sec, but first, let’s

discuss some of the basics of

willpower. Here’s a quick Willpower
101 class.

What Exactly Is Willpower?

Over the years, people have defined

willpower in many different ways.

Some of the most common are:

“The ability to get done what needs to

get done, whether you feel like it or
not.”

“The ability to delay gratification,

resisting short-term temptations in

order to meet long-term goals.”

“Conscious, effortful regulation of the

self by the self.”

“The capacity to override an

unwanted thought, feeling or impulse.”

At its core, willpower is the skill of

noticing what you are about to do and

choosing to do the more difficult thing

you’ll struggle with procrastination.

feeling the pull of the monkey toward
immediate gratification and resisting it.
It’s the ability to resist short-term
pleasure in favor of long-term
success.

Why Is It So Important?
Willpower is the #1 predictor of

happiness, health, wealth, and one’s

general “success” in life. Period.
According to Roy Baumeister, a
leading researcher in this field, people
with greater willpower are happier,
healthier, and more satisfied in their
relationships. They make more
money and are further ahead in their
careers. They are better able to
manage stress, deal with conflict, and
overcome adversity. They even live
longer than their less disciplined
peers.

Baumeister cites countless studies in

his book Willpower, showing that
willpower is a better predictor of
academic achievement than
intelligence, a stronger determinant of
effective leadership than charisma,
and more important for marital
satisfaction than empathy.

He sums up the benefits nicely in his

book: “…found that improving
willpower is the surest way to a better
life.

They’ve come to realize that most

major problems, personal and social,
center on failure of self-control:
compulsive spending and borrowing,
impulsive violence, underachievement
in school, procrastination at work,
alcohol and drug abuse, unhealthy
diet, lack of exercise, chronic anxiety,
explosive anger. Poor self-control
correlates with just about every kind
of individual trauma: losing friends,
being fired, getting divorced, winding
up in prison.”
Improving your willpower is the single
greatest thing you can do to improve
your life.

And as far as procrastination goes,

anything that improves your willpower
will also help you better deal with
procrastination.

The more willpower you have, the

less you’ll struggle with

How Does It Work?

Psychologists often use the analogy
of a muscle to explain how willpower
works.

Just like a muscle, self-control gets

fatigued with heavy use, and thus
varies in strength from moment to
moment. Even the world’s strongest
biceps get tired sometimes, and so
does your willpower muscle.

One classic study of this theory is

called the radish experiment. Roy
Baumeister and his team presented
hungry college students with a bowl
of chocolates and a bowl of radishes.

Both bowls were placed in front of

each student, who was then left alone
sitting in front of the bowls. Half of the
students were some of the
told to eat
chocolates and to not eat any of the
radishes. The other half were asked
to eat some of the radishes while
avoiding the chocolates.
The researchers expected the
radish-eaters to use up a significant

amount of willpower. To find out if that

was the case, the researchers gave
each student a difficult — in fact,
unsolvable — puzzle to solve. What
interested the researchers was how
long students would work on it before
giving up.

Lo and behold, as the muscle theory

would predict, the researchers found
that the radish-eaters gave up much
faster than the chocolate-eaters did.
They had used up a lot of willpower
resisting the chocolates and were left
exhausted when trying to solve the
puzzle.
This experiment has been replicated
in different variations hundreds of
times, and the results are always the
same. If you’ve just finished doing
something that requires a lot of
willpower, you’ve spent a lot of your
overall willpower strength as well.
There’s onlyso much willpower
available in your tank. Once you’ve
used it all up, you lose your ability to
self-regulate on upcoming tasks.

You probably experience this in your

life all the time. When you come home
aftera stressful day at work, what are
you more likely to do: the easy thing or
the hard thing? Watch TV or
exercise?
With your willpower tank almost
empty, it’s pretty much impossible to
veto the monkey’s pull toward
immediate gratification.

The radish and other experiments

explain the first part of the muscle
theory: willpower is like a muscle that
gets fatigued with use.

But there’s another aspect to the

analogy. While a muscle becomes
exhausted by exercise in the
short-term, it’s strengthened by
regular exercise in the long-term.
Likewise, regularly exerting
self-control improves your overall
willpower strength.

One of the first studies demonstrating

this idea asked volunteers to follow a
two-week regimen to track their food
intake, improve their posture, or track
their moods. Compared to a control
group, the participants who had
exerted willpower by performing these
small exercises were less vulnerable
to self-control depletion in follow-up
lab tests.

Another study showed that students

assigned to a daily exercise regimen
not only improved their physical
fitness, but also became less likely to
waste their money on impulse
purchases and were more likely to
wash the dishes instead of leaving
them in the sink.

Roy Baumeister, one of the world’s

leading researchers in the field of self-
control, explains it well in his book
Willpower:

“Exercising self-control in one area

seemed to improve all areas of life.
They smoked fewer cigarettes and
drank less alcohol. They kept their
homes cleaner. They washed dishes
instead of leaving them stacked in the
sink, and did their laundry more often.
They procrastinated less. They did
their work and chores instead of
watching television or hanging out
with friends first. They ate less junk
food, replacing their bad eating habits
with healthier ones.”

Over and over again, research shows

that engaging in activities that require
self-control helps build your overall
self-control muscle.
With all of that being said, let’s
discuss some of the best strategies to

get better at self-control.

I purposefully use the term “get better
at” because it’s not only about
strengthening your willpower; it’s also
about using it more wisely.

Oh, and be warned — strategies that

are proven to grow your willpower
muscle are, by definition, hard. You
don’t grow your biceps by lifting
Styrofoam weights. Likewise, you
don’t grow your willpower by doing
things that are easy.

If you want more self-control, you

need to stretch beyond your current
level — and that’s hard!
TRY THIS: Optimize Your
Health and Energy Levels
Want to know the #1 reason people

give for procrastinating?

According to Dr. Piers Steel, a

leading procrastination researcher, it’s
fatigue. He writes in his book The
Procrastination Equation:

“Whether tiredness is drug-induced or

not, being too tired is the number- one
reason given for procrastinating; 28
percent of people claim, ‘Didn’t have
enough energy to begin the task’ as
the cause… Fatigue increases
task-aversion, saps interest, and
makes the difficult excruciating.”
The reason fatigue plays such a huge
role is because the use of willpower,
just like the use of any other muscle,
takes energy.

That’s right. Every act of willpower

requires and uses up energy.

If you resist eating a piece of cake,

that takes energy. If you suppress an
emotion, like anger or laughter, that
takes energy. If you cook a healthy
dinner in spite of not feeling like it,
that takes energy.

Interestingly enough, the energetic

component for the willpower muscle is
the same as for any other muscle:
blood sugar. Researchers have found
that if people perform a self-control
task (e.g., ignoring distractions or
controlling emotions), their blood
sugar levels tend to drop. And the
person’s blood sugar level
drops after a self-control task, the
worse he or she performs on the next
task.

If you give willpower-drained

individuals a glass of lemonade, the

resulting boost in their blood sugar

temporarily restores willpower.

Blood sugar problems (which

translate into unstable and generally

low
energy levels) predict a wide range of
willpower failures. Both diabetics and
hypoglycemics are struggling to resist
their impulses and delay gratification.

Roy Baumeister writes about both

cases in his book Willpower:

“The link between glucose and

self-control appeared in studies of
people with hypoglycemia, the
tendency to have low blood sugar.
Researchers noted that hypoglycemics
were more likely than the average
person to have trouble concentrating
and controlling their negative
emotions when provoked. Overall, they
tended to be more anxious and less
happy than average. Hypoglycemia
was also reported to be unusually
prevalent among criminals and other
violent persons, and some creative
defense attorneys brought the
low-blood-sugar research into court.”

He goes on to mention a study that

found below-average glucose levels

in 90% (!) of juvenile delinquents taken

into custody.

All in all, people with hypoglycemia

are more likely to be convicted of a
wide range of offenses: shoplifting,
public profanity, destruction of
property, traffic violations, intimate
partner violence, child abuse, public
masturbation, and so on.

Low blood sugar levels translate into

lowenergy. And low energy levels
mean these people have trouble
regulating their behavior, resulting in
more crime and other
self-control-related issues.

The same thing seems to happen with

diabetics. (While they have high blood
sugar levels, their bodies have trouble
converting that blood sugar into
energy, which also results in a lack of
“Researchers
testing personality have found that
diabetics tend to be more impulsive
and have more explosive
temperaments than other people their
age. They’re more likely to get
distracted while working on a time-
consuming task. They have more
problems with alcohol abuse, anxiety,
and depression. In hospitals and
other institutions, diabetics throw
more tantrums than other patients. In
everyday life, stressful conditions
seem to be harder on diabetics.
Coping with stress typically takes
self-control, and that’s difficult if your
body isn’t providing your brain with
enough fuel.”

I’ve gotten a bit sidetracked here, but

the point is that self-control requires en

ergy.

If you don’t have energy, you don’t

have self-control. Or as Roy

Baumeister puts it: no glucose, no

willpower.

It’s that simple.

It doesn’t even matter where your lack

of energy is coming from — whether
you’ve just had a tough day at work,
eaten too much energy-draining junk
food, consumed too much alcohol,
have blood sugar issues, have
adrenal issues, eaten too much food in
general, or just have had a bad
night’s sleep.

If you lack energy, you won’t be able

to withstand the monkey’s constant
pulls toward immediate gratification.

Ifyou want to overcome

procrastination, you need a good and

stable supply of energy. In fact, I would

go as far as saying that the more
energy you have, the less you’ll
struggle with procrastination.

Let me repeat that: The more energy

you have, the less you’ll struggle with
procrastination.

Anything you can do to improve your

health and energy levels will help you
overcome procrastination. There’s
another reason to eat healthy and
mind your health!
The implications of this truth are
rather obvious. If you’re chronically
sleep-deprived, stressed out, drinking
too much alcohol, and stuffing
yourself with junk food, you need to
re-consider your lifestyle.

If you’re serious about overcoming

procrastination, you need to get

serious about your health and energy

as well.

For starters, get enough sleep,

optimize your diet, and exercise

regularly.

In addition to that, I highly suggest

investing some your time and
of
money into learning more about good
sleep, proper nutrition, and exercise. I
can tell you from my own experience
that improving my sleep, nutrition,
exercise, and other health-related
aspects of my life has been
absolutely game-changing for me.

When I drink too much alcohol, sleep

too little, or eat too much crappy food,
my procrastination rises dramatically.
It’s so much harder to overcome
resistance when I’m feeling tired.

Unfortunately, I don’t have time to go

into any specific health-related
recommendations here. I can,
however, point you in the right
direction.

If you wish to learn more about

optimizing your health and energy
levels, I suggest checking out the
following people’s websites, books,
and other resources: Dave Asprey,
Mark Sisson, Ben Greenfield, Dr.
David Perlmutter, Dr. Mark Hyman, Dr.
Mercola, and Katy Bowman.

These are some of my go-to

resources when it comes to living a
healthy and high-powered lifestyle.

TRY THIS: Simplify Your

Life
Making decisions is hard work.

Depending on the type of decision,

you must consider possible upsides

and downsides, take responsibility,

struggle with moral questions, and so
on.
It’s an energy-intensive process that
leads to a peculiar phenomenon
decision fatigue: The more
decisions you make, the worse your
judgment becomes.

Every decision you make takes

energy. And unfortunately for you and

me, that’s the same energy we’re

using for willpower as well. Every
decision you make sucks a little bit of
fuel out of your willpower tank. The
harder the decision, the more
energy/willpower will be needed.

When you start your day, the tank is

full (provided you’ve had a good
night’s sleep!). Every time you exert
effort, you a bit of fuel,
withdraw
slowly emptying your tank. Choosing
what to eat for breakfast drains a little
bit. Same with deciding what to wear.
Same with deciding whether to hit the
gym before work or not.

Marketing experts have known about

decision fatigue for years. That’s why
they put candy and other brightly
packaged goodies at registers. As you
make decisions while shopping, your
blood sugar dips. By the time you’re
ready to check out, you’re more likely
to crave sugar to replenish your blood
sugar stores than you were when you
came in the door.

The good newsyou can reduce the

is
number of decisions you make, helping
you save your precious willpower to
beat procrastination and put toward
something else important to you.

Here are three simple things you can

do to reduce decision fatigue and free
up willpower.

Plan your day the night before.

What clothes am I going to wear
today? What should I eat for
breakfast? Should I hit the gym or
sleep for another half hour? These are
decisions thatcan be made the night
before, which means you won’t be
wasting your self-control on those
choices the next day.

Eat the same mealsover and over

again. I have the same breakfast
every day — a black coffee. For
lunch, it’s (almost) always a
combination of steamed veggies and
cheese or a piece of meat. For dinner,
it’s a decision between three meals I
cycle through. Very few decisions,
compare that to the
the pre-fron
average person who’s been shown to
make 226 decisions about food per
day.

Minimize your wardrobe. Steve Jobs

was famous for his sneakers and black
turtleneck. Barack Obama cycled
through the same three or four suits
during his presidency. Mark
Zuckerberg has 10 identical gray
shirts in his closet. You don’t need to
go that far, but try to simplify your
wardrobe a bit. The less stuff you’ve
got in there, the fewer decisions your
brain is forced to make.

As a general guideline, anything that

helps you simplify your life will help
reduce decision fatigue and keep
more willpower in your tank to beat
procrastination.

TRY THIS: Meditate

Neuroplasticity is a term used to

describe the brain’s ability to change

itself.

That’s right, it turns out that the brain

is incredibly responsive to experience
and changes itself based on what you
do. When you practice a certain
behavior, you’re strengthening the
neural circuits responsible for that
behavior, making it more accessible
and more likely to occur in the future.

When you’re angry, you’re literally

getting better at being angry and the
brain region associated with being
angry will grow denser. When you’re
happy, you’re getting better at being
happy and the brain region associated
with being happy will grow denser.

Just like that, you can train your brain

to be better at self-control. And
meditation is one of the best ways to
do that.

Why? Because meditation has

powerful effects on many skills related

to willpower: focus, attention, impulse

control, self-awareness, stress
management, emotion regulation, and
so on.

Regular meditators aren’t just better

at these things — they literally have
their brains to show for it. They have

cortex (the area of the brain where

willpower resides), as well as regions
of the brain that support
self-awareness.

And contrary to what you may think, it

doesn’t take years of practice toreap
the benefits. Kelly McGonigal, an
expert on all things willpower-related,
says that a mere three hours of
practice are enough to boost
self-control. She writes in her book
The Willpower Instinct:

“One study found that just three hours

of meditation practice led to improved
attention and self-control. After eleven
hours, researchers could see those
changes in the brain. The new
meditators had increased neural
connections between regions of the
brain important for staying focused,
ignoring distractions, and controlling
impulses. Another study found that
eight weeks of daily meditation
practice led to increased
self-awareness in everyday life, as well
as gray matter in
increased
corresponding areas of the brain. It
may seem incredible that our brains
can reshape themselves so quickly,
but meditation increases blood flow to
the prefrontal cortex, in much the
same way that lifting weights
increases blood flow to your muscles.
The brain appears to adapt to
exercise in the same way that muscles
do, getting both bigger and faster in
order to get better at what you ask of
it.”

She says that the brains of meditators

become finely tuned willpower
machines over time.

If you want to improve your willpower

with meditation, I suggest downloading
an app called Headspace and taking
their free 10-day challenge. The app
teaches you mindfulness meditation
(the type of meditation used in most of
the studies) in an easy step-by-step
fashion. It’s the simplest way to start
meditating and make it a daily
practice that I’ve found.

TRY THIS: Exercise

Exercise is one of the absolute best
tools you can use to strengthen your
willpower.
Kelly McGonigal, the willpower expert
I’ve mentioned, explains in The
Willpower Instinct:

“Exercise turns out to be the closest

thing to a wonder drug that
self-control scientists have discovered.
For starters, the willpower benefits of
exercise are immediate. 15 minutes on
a treadmill reduces cravings, as seen
when researchers try to tempt dieters
with chocolate and smokers with
cigarettes. The long-term effects of
exercise are even more impressive. It
not only relieves ordinary, everyday
stress, but it’s as powerful an
antidepressant as Prozac. Working out
also enhances the biology of
self-control by increasing baseline
heart rate variability and training the
brain. When neuroscientists have
peered inside the brains of new
exercisers, they have seen increases
in both gray matter — brain cells —
and white matter, the insulation on
brain cells that helps them
communicate quickly and efficiently
with each other. Physical exercise —
like meditation — makes your brain
bigger and faster, and the prefrontal
cortex shows the largest training
effect.”

The immediate question this quote

provokes is: How much do I need to

do?

The right answer depends on how

much you’re willing to do. Setting
unrealistic goals that you’re going to
abandon in a week makes no sense.
Besides that, there’s no scientific
consensus about how much exercise
you need to do.

It’s best to start with a modest and

realistic goal — consistency over
intensity is the maxim.

Anything that you like to do and gets

you moving is great.

Best of all, walking, gardening,

grocery shopping, yoga, swimming,
dancing, playing with your kids or pets
— they all count!

TRY THIS: Grow Your

Self-Compassion
Self-compassion, the practice we

discussed in chapter eight, is another

great way to boost self-control.
Here’s a short and concise
explanation from Kelly McGonigal in
The Willpower Instinct:

“If you think that the key to greater

willpower is being harder on yourself,
you are not alone. But you are wrong.
Study after study shows that self-
criticism is consistently associated
with less motivation and worse self-
control. It is also one of the single
biggest predictors of depression,
which drains both “I will” power and “I
want” power. In contrast,
self-compassion — being supportive
and kind to yourself, especially in the
face of stress and failure — is
associated with more motivation and
better self-control.”

Remember the study on

self-forgiveness versus self-criticism
we talked about in the self-compassion
chapter?

The more self-critical participants

were in response to procrastinating
the first time, the longer they
procrastinated for the next exam. It’s
forgiveness, not guilt, which maximizes
self-control and performance.

Like I mentioned previously,

becoming more self-compassionate

has made a huge difference in my life.

Not only does it help me procrastinate
less, but it makes me happier,
healthier, and more successful in
general.

Ultimately, itcomes down to the

question of how you want to coach
yourself.

Think about it. If you could pick a

coach who follows you 24/7 for the

rest of your life, who would you pick?

The guy who criticizes you all the

time, puts you down, makes you
small, beats you up mentally, punishes
you, and rules with a demoralizing
whip? Or the guy who looks out for
you, cares for you, treats you with
respect, has your best interests in
mind, picks you up when you’re
feeling down, and motivates you?

Ifyou want to be a good coach for

yourself and overcome

procrastination along the way, leave

self-criticism behind and choose the
path of self-compassion.
The good news is, no matter how
self-critical you currently are, you can
change it.

Self-compassion, just like willpower,

is a muscle. The more you train it, the
better you get at it.

The best way to grow your

self-compassion muscle is simply to
use it regularly. Every time you’re not
feeling so well is a chance to practice
compassion for yourself — maybe
you’re feeling angry, lonely,
depressed, sad, or disappointed. In
such a moment of suffering, treat
yourself like you would treat a good
friend: with love, warmth, and care.
Realize it’s okay to feel this way and
that other people feel this way too. It’s
normal to be imperfect and struggle
from time to time. Realize also that
any thoughts and emotions are
impermanent; they come and go like
clouds in the sky. See if you can
simply watch your inner world as a
compassionate, nonjudgmental
observer.

You can even try to console and

comfort yourself by talking to yourself

in a kind, sympathetic, and

understanding way.
you feel like it,
If
you can give yourself a hug, gently
stroke your arms, or lay your hands
on your heart.
I know it sounds a bit silly at first, but

give it a try.

What have you got to lose? It’s not

like other people are watching —
they’re too busy struggling with their
own issues!

And if you want to learn more about

the science of self-compassion, check
out Kristin Neff’s similarly titled book.

Above All, Practice,

Practice, Practice
Self-control is a skill like any other. If

you want to get better at it, you need

to practice.
You see, the secret to superhuman
willpower is willpower itself: self-
discipline begets self-discipline. Every
time you act with discipline, you grow
that muscle and become a little bit
more disciplined.

Every time you you

resist the cookie,
grow your willpower. Every time you
opt for a book instead of the TV, you
grow your willpower. Every time you
resist the urge to check Facebook,
you grow your willpower. Every time
you get up early and resist hitting the
snooze button, you grow your
willpower. Every time you prioritize
sleep over watching another episode
of your favorite TV show, you grow
your willpower.

And remember, growing your

willpower muscle directly translates

into procrastinating less.

Before we wrap up this chapter, there

are two things I would like you to keep
in mind on your journey to having
more self-control.

go
First of all, start small. Don’t try to
from zero to hero. Don’t aim to get up
early, go for a morning run, take a
cold shower, and then meditate for 20
minutes. Unless you’re already very
disciplined, this is a recipe for failure,
discouragement, and self-criticism.

Instead, start small. Slowly cut back

on negative habits. Slowly build your
life around positive,
willpower-supporting habits. If you do
that, you’ll find your self-control
steadily becoming stronger and
stronger.

Second, expect lots of setbacks and

drama on your journey.

You’ll inevitably experience periods of

despair, disappointment, and
discouragement. You’ll feel like
nothing’s working and you’re moving
backwards instead of forwards. You’ll
start doubting yourself. You’ll fall back
into old habits. And so on and so
forth.

That’s to be expected. The best thing

you can do during those times is to
work on your self-compassion.
Above all, stay patient. Building
self-control takes time. Just keep at it

and you’ll be sure to reap the rewards.

Chapter Summary

The idea: Procrastination can be

described as a self-control failure. If
you want to do one thing, but end up
doing something else, you simply
lacked the necessary willpower to
resist the allure of immediate
gratification. In other words, you failed
to control the self — you failed to
control your own behavior. The good
news is that willpower is subject to
change. Even better, every
improvement in willpower translates
directly into an improvement with
procrastination.

The tactics

Optimize your health and energy

levels: Willpower is surprisingly
physical anduses up the same
energy we use for breathing,
exercising, talking, moving around, etc.
Ifyour health sucks, you’ll lack the
energy required for willpower and
overcome procrastination.
you’ll fail to
The more energy you have, the more
willpower you have, and the better
you are at resisting the monkey’s
constant pulls toward immediate
gratification. I suggest optimizing your
nutrition, exercise, sleep, and other
health habits.
Simplify your life: Every decision
you make burns up a little bit of
willpower — willpower that could be
used to battle procrastination. By
simplifying your life, you reduce the
amount of decisions you have to
make every day. Start by minimizing
your wardrobe, planning your days
the night before, and cycling through
the same healthy meals over and
over again.

Meditate: Meditation has been shown

to be one of the best strategies to
improve willpower and grow the
correlating brain structures. I suggest
starting a daily mindfulness
meditation habit with the use of the
Headspace app.
Exercise: Regular exercise is
another powerful self-control booster.

You don’t even need to go to the gym

— anything from gardening to playing
with kids or pets counts! As a general

intensively a couple of times per week

and move at a low pace throughout
the day as much as possible.

Grow your self-compassion:

Self-compassion one of my best
is
kept secrets. It helps me cope with
procrastination, makes me happier,
relieves a lot of guilt, and has even
been shown to boost willpower. From
now on, resolve to treat yourself with
understanding, care, and respect.
Leave the constant criticism and harsh
judgments behind. They only make
things worse.

FINAL
THOUGHTS
Well, there you have it.

Congrats on making it all the way to

the end of this book. For a (soon to

be ex-) procrastinator, that’s a

monumental task.

Hopefully, you’ve had a good time

and learned a thing or two about
procrastination. My hope is you’ll be
able to take action from the tips,
strategies, and insights we’ve
discussed.

Because that’s the key right there —

taking action.

You can read all the books in the

world and learn fantastic ideas and
tactics, but they won’t create any
meaningful change unless you apply
them to your own life.

Unless you get your feet wet,

nothing’s going to change. Taking the

leap from theory to practice, from

knowing to doing, is what separates
stagnation from growth and winners
from dreamers.

One of my all-time favorite quotes

illustrates this point beautifully. It’s

from The Kybalion:

"The possession of Knowledge,

unless accompanied by a
manifestation and expression in
Action, is like the hoarding of precious
metals — a vain and foolish thing.
Knowledge, like wealth, is intended
for Use. The Law of Use is Universal,
and he who violates it suffers by
reason of his conflict with natural
forces."

Knowledge is intended for use — not

applying it is a vain and foolish thing to
do.

I feel this message ismore

appropriate at the end of a book on
procrastination than anywhere else.
The typical reader, upon finishing the
book, will say to themselves something
along the lines of, “Wow, that was
helpful information. I’ll definitely apply
it once I have the time.”

Don’t fall into that trap.

Start executing some of the tactics

immediately upon closing this book.

Set some implementation intentions.

Install a website-blocking browser
extension. Declutter your desktop.
Clean your room. Download the
Headspace app.

Once you’ve implemented one

strategy, you’re 10x more likely to
implement another, and another, and
another. But you need to start
somewhere, and you need to stop
worrying about getting it perfect.

There’s no perfect anti-procrastination

regimen. Don’t let your monkey tell
you there is. It is just trying to make
excuses for not taking action right
now. The last thing the monkey wants
to do right now is implement these
tactics. Instead, it wants to watch some
TV or hop on Facebook. “You
deserve it,” it will say.
Stop taking orders from a pleasure

addict.
(caption on same page as image)

Heck, you’re probably already feeling

a little anxious, tense, or insecure right

now. You probably feel the urge to run
away from taking action.
Don’t do it.

Stay put. Relax. Then execute.

Oh, and one last piece of advice

before we wrap this up: Be prepared

for a bumpy ride. Overcoming

procrastination isn’t exactly a walk in
the park. It’s more like a never-ending
pain in the ass.
It’s hard work. It’s messy. It’s

discouraging at times.

You’ll experience many defeats on

your road to redemption. You’ll feel
like you’re not making enough
progress. You’ll feel like you’re
moving backwards. You’ll feel like
giving up and choosing comfort over
growth. That’s normal.

Your job is to persevere. Forgive

yourself for fucking up and get back

on track as swiftly as possible.

The Buddha allegedly said,

“Persevere in your quest and you will

find what you seek. Pursue your aim

unswervingly and you will gain victory.
Struggle earnestly and you will
triumph.”

Just keep putting in the work and you

will reap the rewards. Best of luck on
your journey.

—Nils Salzgeber
P.S. Speaking of Taking
Action…
If you haven’t already, now is the time

to download the Stop Procrastinating

Action Guide.

Downloading the Action Guide and

doing the exercises will do more for
overcoming procrastination than
merely reading the book.

Why? Because you’re forced to do

something with the ideas presented
here.

So far, this has been a passive

process. The Action Guide forces you
to become active – to reflect, think,
plan, and prepare. This will make a
massive difference in cementing
these ideas firmly in your mind, which
ensures you’ll know exactly what to
do when the urge to procrastinate
strikes in real life.

Oh, and don’t hesitate to drop me a

message at nils@njlifehacks.com if

you have any thoughts, questions, or

feedback. I love hearing from readers,
and I’ll get back to you as soon as
possible.

To a productive and prosperous life!

THANK YOU
Before the two of us part ways, I’d like
to say thank you for purchasing and
reading my guide.

I’m aware that you could have chosen

any other book on the subject of

procrastination, and I’m thrilled you
chose this one.
So thanks for downloading my book

and reading all the way to the end.

Now I’d like to ask for a small favor.

Could you take a moment to leave a

review for this book on Amazon?

I’d love to hear your feedback. This is

my first book, and I’m curious to know

if it’s any good.

Thanks so much!
 ABOUT THE
AUTHOR
Hey, I’m Nils.

And yes, this is a first-person author

bio.

And no, I haven’t got any fancy

degrees or other astonishing
accomplishments to brag about here.

Frankly, I’m just a regular guy (much

like you, I suppose) looking to make
the most out of my life. My goal is
simple: I want to live a great life (again,
much like you, I suppose).
The question is, how do we get there?
My answer is… drum roll, please…
through continuous and rigorous self-im
provement.

Ifwe want to achieve our greatest

potential, we need to invest in

ourselves. We need to take risks, work

hard, learn, learn, learn, and get a tiny
bit better every single day.

I’ve been on this journey for a while

now, and I’m learning a lot.

For a over a year, I’ve been
little
sharing my latest and greatest
insights on mine and my brother
Jonas’ website at
www.njlifehacks.com.

We write about productivity,

procrastination, Stoicism, mindset,

habits, and anything else that helps us

live better.

If you’re into this kind of stuff,

subscribe to our newsletter to get

exclusive material, updates, and more.

We’d love to have you on board!

That’s it from me.

To a productive and prosperous life,

—Nils Salzgeber
P.S.: Got questions or feedback? I’d

love to hear about it. Just send me an

email at: nils@njlifehacks.com.