Procrastination: can it be cured?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I finally got around to starting a thread on this (ok, that should have us covered for procrastination jokes…)

My master’s thesis was such a last-minute rush job that it actually finishes mid-sentence. Yes, really.
At work, I regularly work evenings and weekends, not because I’m overworked, but because I spend much of the day in a cycle of making myself coffees, browsing the internet, checking my phone and looking out of the window. I just can’t seem to focus on a task until it super urgently needs to have been done yesterday.

I had a great idea for starting a business about 3 months ago; a niche no-one has exploited yet, and I’m positive will be a big success. Wondering where you can buy my product? Well, so far it’s only available in the land of make-believe.

Is there any way out of this? I’m already in my 30s so I’m not looking for reassurance that things will be different in the future; I know they won’t be, unless something very significant happens.
I had a simple system which worked for a while; see spoiler box below. But beyond that, I’ve tried many systems and none have made a dent in my behaviour.

“Currency” system
I just assign a positive score to anything I want to encourage myself to do, and a negative score to anything that is either a leisure activity or a reward in some sense. Then, the only rule is, my “balance” is never allowed to be negative.
So, I can play a video game for an hour, which costs credits, only after earning enough credits by, say, working on my business plan for an hour, and going to the gym.

Yeah, it’s embarrassing that an adult should need such a system, but whatever, it actually worked surprisingly well. I think the reason it worked is that it is not possible to passively quit. The only way to fail is to explicitly decide one day to screw the system and watch TV even though I have not yet earned it. This is different to procrastination where you never consciously make the decision to fail.

After about 3 months though, I stopped this system because it wasn’t so good at motivating me towards the completion of big tasks, just doing something towards them. There was no distinction between busywork and working smart.
I resolved to tweak the system, but so far I’ve failed to think of an improved version.

2

Procrastination is often due to ADHD, or, more precisely, ADHD symptoms can look identical to procrastination. So to that degree and in that sense, it can certainly be treated.

3

Ok, so I broke the habit in myself. It took about a year. But I don’t have any tips or tricks. I literally just woke up one morning and said, “Self, you need to go back to school and get your degree. But you’ll never get it if you don’t break this procrastination habit.”

So I broke it. I literally forced myself to do everything as soon as I thought about it. Even if I was miserable about doing it. If it was that bad I’d make myself spend just 15 minutes on it. More often than not after the 15 minutes I’d kind of be into it.

It was really hard at first but I just forced myself to do it. I made lists and forced myself to check them off every single day.

As time went on I noticed it was working! It was getting easier. I was basically building up good habits. It got to the point that I started automatically doing tasks as soon as I got them.

I did indeed go back to school at the end of the year. I graduated last year with a 3.77 GPA while working full time.

Don’t tell me nothing will change in your thirties btw. That is a horrible, selfdefeating attitude. For the record, I am 39 right now.

4

Maybe if we’re lucky there will be a cure…

…tomorrow.

(So much for “that should have us covered for the procrastination jokes.” You should definitely know better.)

5

There’s also “Need answer whenever?”

6

Thanks for your post and it’s encouraging you managed to make such a positive change to your life. I didn’t mean that I’m too old to improve my situation.

I just meant that sometimes when you get these “Will I ever change…?” threads, you can tell the OP just wants some reassurance, and they can’t really imagine living the rest of their life with whatever their problem is.
I was just trying to say: that’s not my situation. Not only can I imagine the rest of my life being like this, I can’t imagine anything else.

7

Ah, I see. Well, nobody can fix it for you, I’m afraid. :slight_smile: I just got too tired of the consequences of being a procrastinator.

The other thing I did was start forcing myself to do the most unpleasant tasks first. For example if I had to call an angry customer, I’d get it done by 9:30 at the latest (enough time to get coffee, check email. It was annoying, but it was a wonderful feeling the rest of the day to know I had checked the unpleasant tasks off! And I didn’t mind doing the rest of the tasks after.

People make fun of me because my life seems regimented but honestly it is how I fit everything in. When I was going back to school, I’d come home and get on my homework first thing. It would be dinner-homework-fun. And I always made time for fun, even on my busiest days, even if it was only 30 minutes of scheduled fun (movie, book, crafting).

But the core of it all was that I really wanted to change. I didn’t want to be like this anymore. And I think if you don’t want that, no amount of cognitive behavior therapy, meds, or doctors will actually help.

8

I don’t have anything to add, just that I am totally feeling you, OP. You should see my house. It’s very frustrating and I’m increasingly worried that my son is going to grow up with me as a shitty rolemodel.

9

“How to unfuck your house” I think that’s what the site is called. Basically,you set the clock to alarm in 15 minuets and you pick up clothes/wash dishes/clean the bathroom until it goes off… Oddly enough,it works.

10

That “work 15 minutes” has always been a great jumpstarter for me. Also Anaamika’s idea of doing the hardest thing first.

I’ve been trying to fix my own procrastination problems at work lately, and what I’ve found is that I’m most productive in the morning. So I come in at 8, and my rule is that I must bust my ass until 10 o’clock. After that, I can socialize, check email, get coffee, etc. It’s been working great, because once I’ve got the momentum I actually don’t stop.

11

Right now I’m in bed with swollen feet because of being in the power chair… Anyways,I get up to pee,then work around the house for an hour (or less) then back to bed… I’ve got toes now and the house is clean(ish)

12

Lots of mini-deadlines work for me, especially if I tell them to other people and use something like Asana to keep track.

13

I’m really into making lists. Do a few of the easier things first and mark them off. Or break the job into segments, so you can check off partial completion. Crossing something out is a satisfying feeling.

14

Thanks for all the advice. As well as this thread, I’ve googled around and found the following advice I hadn’t heard before, and may try to work into a routine:

  1. Limit time on a task. Say that today you will only work on this task for 30 minutes. Then it seems less onerous, and also you’re more likely to plough into it.

  2. An interesting article on alifeofproductivity.com listed 6 properties of a task that make us more likely to put off doing it (boring, frustrating, difficult, lack personal meaning, not clear when complete, unstructured). When starting a big task it can be useful to consider which of these things apply and immediately do something to rectify it.

  3. There are some nice apps for gently nudging you back to work, as well as encouraging you to take sensible breaks. Alas, the one I liked the look of most – Vitamin-R – is Mac and iPhone only, so I can’t try it out.

  4. Send an email to your future self (you can send a delayed mail in outlook) about the things you planned to do within a time period. Apparently when your future self is pissed that you didn’t complete those things, it adds an important consequence to your actions. I’m skeptical, but will try it.

I say “may” try to work into a routine because right now the things I’m doing for my personal situation are as follows:
I’ve bought a small whiteboard that I’ll hang next to my computer and list my tasks for the day. Making my tasks somewhat public should be a good motivator.
And I’ve set up a laptop with all my work software, so I can do some work away from my desk, or even out of the office. Being sat at the same place all day is really depressing, and makes me restless.

15

Sure. I’ll tell ya later.

16

I cured myself of most aspects in my 30’s. I started off by just making sure I turned off the garage light at night. I used to drink the light off instead of getting off my ass and turning it off.

 The most important thing for me is to hit the ground running each morning. I tend to over estimate ny workload which allows me to finish early and I get that little emotional rush for finishing my work. I plan my day the night before and stick to it. Once I get my work done I do what I want.  

 It will not cure itself you have to get into action. My biggest weakness after all these years is sending packages off, I use a local service so I can't say I don't have supplies. Unless I have heat on me I am usually about a week late on sending packages off. I know the answer is to just do it first thing in the morning.
17

I don’t have any good advice.
As I have gotten older I tend to say F*-it if I don’t want to do it.
Then when the sh*t hits the fan, BOOM - it is done.
Pathological Procrastination at its finest. :slight_smile:

18

I find having a routine helps; it’s the start of the weekend, so get the washing started, I’ve finished my meal so wash up, just got home so make a pot of tea and while it’s brewing tidy up, change clothes etc. No decision to make on my part, it just has to be.

Maybe you’re not a ‘routine person’, ever tried flipping a coin? Heads you do something that scores negatively, tails you do something scoring positively? Don’t keep a tally, just complete whatever task the coin tells you to. Could be fun?

19

Just keep this in mind:

Hard work & dedication often pay off down the road

but procrastination always pays off now. :slight_smile:

20

Procrastination a problem? Then get one of these.