Reformed procrastinators: how did you do it?

In My Humble Opinion
1

First of all, are there any reformed procrastinators out there? It would be nice to know it can be done.

I work with hard deadlines each week on Tuesday morning. Usually, that means wasting Wednesday through Friday, then telling myself I’ll take some stuff home with me over the weekend. Around Sunday evening, I start to realize exactly how screwed I am for the next couple of days. Most weeks I’ll work about 16 hours on Monday and come in at about 4 a.m. Tuesday to barely make my mark. Then I’m so fried by this time (Tuesday afternoon) that I just want to relax and surf the net. Maybe sleep a little.

And the whole thing starts over again. At this point, I’m usually uttering the phrase common to alcoholics: “Never again.” And if you think the comparison to alcoholism is a bit dramatic, let me tell you, I am addicted to my free time. I barely graduated high school because of it, and dropped out of college because of it. I used to call myself a terminal procrastinator, because I put things off until there was no point in doing them anymore. I have a career in spite of this, but if I keep doing this I will burn myself out, and fast.

So I ask you, folks who used to procrastinate but don’t anymore, how did you rid yourself of that ever-present feeling of “fuck it”? Or is it a matter of controlling it?

2

I’ll tell you in a second. Hold on.

3

I’m not fully reformed in any way.
However, I find that if I do something RIGHT NOW, I don’t procrastinate.

4

I believe that like alcoholics, one is never recovered. You will always be a procrastinator.

I do it because I thrive on the ohmygoshI’vegottofinishthisNOW feeling of a tight deadline.
I work around it a couple of ways. Frequently I bite off more than I can chew, which adds the necessary pressure as well as makes me fabulously productive.

When I can’t do that, I set deadlines for myself that are closer than the actual deadline. This only works when I can convince myself of the revised deadline, but it is a good technique for keeping me from being late for things.
For example: I need to be at place Z at 1:00. It takes 45 minutes to get to place Z. I convince myself that I *need *to leave at 12:00. I underestimate how long it takes me to get ready and don’t make it out the door until 12:15. I arrive on schedule.

Sometimes I build in procrastination time. I will give myself a cushion of time that I know I will goof off during, then it’s time to buckle down. Maybe that’s not technically procrastinating, but I feel better having had my down time before getting down to business. But I have to set a specific time - “At 4:30 I will go and start writing that paper.” Otherwise the downtime doesn’t stop.

Mostly it’s about finding ways to manage time so that I get to procrastinate and still get things done on time and with their required quality.
Some days I’m better at it than others. Guilt is what keeps me striving for improvement.

5

I am with you on this. I can’t seem to get into a productive frame of mind until I’m staring down a deadline. I am a prolific time waster. I will veg out and do nothing even as I keep telling myself that I have to get to work on something. If I feel like I have any kind of leeway, my mind can’t focus.

The only solution I’ve found is to take advantage of the times when I feel focused and productive and get as much work done as possible.

6

I focus on how bad I feel when I procrastinate things I know I need to do, and how good I feel when I do things in a timely fashion. I also make bargains with myself - decide which chores need to be done today (a reasonable number, like three), and after they’re done, the rest of the day is mine to do with as I wish.

Also, Nike’s motto really helped me with perspective - “JUST DO IT.” It’s not going to get easier or get done if you don’t just friggin’ DO IT.

7

I wouldn’t call myself “reformed,” but I’m sure trying to reform. I can recommend reading The Now Habit for some good explanation of procrastination and techniques for getting out of it. I’m not quite there, though, so I don’t know if this is helpful advice.

8

I’ve spent a good 30 years trying to get better (by baby steps). I have gone from avoiding studies/work/tasks to the moment before it is absolutely necessary to do it, to actually doing things the moment I realize they need doing (most of the time…some…well, I try).

The key for me is not the pain that procrastination causes, but the increased pleasure I get from having free time and knowing that there are no lingering demons on the horizon. I can plop in front of a video game happily knowing that the dishes and lawn and homework are done, instead of getting stressed playing a video game and panicking at how much I’ve put off and is left to do.

Life is about pleasure, and if the pain is completed first then the pleasure is vastly increased.

9

Oh, for Christ’s sake. It’s 10:11 p.m., and I’m vaguely thinking it’s time to go to bed, but surfing a bit first. I am scrolling down “New Posts”, see this link, and…

Bookmark it, thinking, “I’ll read it tomorrow.”

Where is the head-smacking smiley?

10

Lists. Lots and lots of detailed lists. Make sure the fun things are on them as well as the chores.

For example, my list for the night says “Apply to job posting I saw, play EVE online for one hour, make egg salad, take a shower, run the dishwasher, transfer files to laptop, watch food network 3AM”

If I didn’t make a list, I assure you that most of my night would be spent getting absolutely nothing done. It’s the only way I cope, really.

11

Hi. I’m George, and I’m a procrastinator.

Mindfulness meditation helps. It’s great for putting aside all of the gear-grinding, racing thoughts about what might or could or should happen in the future, and focusing just on what I’m doing as I’m doing. Thius does wonders for being able to understand and realize “Just Do It” (so it’s not just a meaningless slogan for me). It takes practice, and I’m just a beginner, but even just a few minutes here and there can take the edge off of a lot of the kinds of thinking that leads to procrastination.

Also, I’ve been pretty relentless about reorganizing my processes around “getting things done”, planning, task- and time management. I’ve got a fantastically indiosyncratic approach to the whole thing that I keep tweaking as I figure out what actually works for me. I started with one of those Franklin Covey planners, and followed all of Covey’s advice on using it. Before long, and before madness set in, I gutted the whole thing, and filled it with blank pages that I use in a sort of organic way that works for me.

Keeping and using task lists (and frequently reassessing and revising how I use them) has been invaluable.

12

One of my professors in college explained that procrastination is often a sign of perfectionism, and this makes a certain amount of sense to me. You tell yourself that if you start right now, you’ll still be working feverishly up to the last minute because you want to get it just right. The magnitude of the task overwhelms and intimidates you, so you push it out of your mind for as long as you can rather than let it take up your whole life.
One thing that might help is to break your big, “have to get this done by Tuesday morning” tasks up into smaller chunks or steps, and schedule a time or give yourself a deadline for each thing.

13

Care to distill some of the advice from this book?

14

I haven’t gotten around to finishing it yet. :smack:

What I’ve found helpful so far: one consolation and two techniques:

  1. The consolation (for me, anyway) is as follows (p.16, though reiterated often): “[P]rocrastination is not a character defect; rather, it is an attempt – albeit an unsatisfactory one – at coping with the often incapacitating fear of having our worth held up for judgment.” I have come to believe this fear is at the root of my own procrastination. YMMV.

  2. One technique is the “unschedule” – basically you schedule your free time, leisure, fun, and make sure you have something to look forward to right there on your calendar. This should be helpful for people who procrastinate in response to the worry that the work, once started, will never be over.

  3. Another technique is the “reverse calendar” – for a larger project you mark the last deadline (the point at which you are “finished”) on the calendar first, then divide the project into smaller tasks that you schedule in working backward to today. I guess this is just another way of saying “break it up into manageable pieces,” but I’ve always had trouble keeping the big picture and little tasks balanced in my mind; this helps.

I’ll post more when I learn more.

15

I’d tell you, but first I have to go finish what I’m putting off.

16

That makes sense. Maybe procrastinators would benefit from telling themselves, “I’ll work on this for 20 minutes today, and leave it at that no matter how much I get done or how it’s turning out.” It’s so easy to get overwhelmed by by projects, but all it really takes is an adjustment of perspective. I dug a car pad out in my backyard one summer; it is cut into a hill, so it’s about three feet deep at one end. I moved literally tons of earth by myself, with a spade. I did it one shovelful at a time, and spent the whole damned summer working at it. That really gave me a good perspective on projects - every one of them are just one shovelful at a time.

17

Hi. My name is shiftless and I’m a procrastinator.

I have one word of advice that works for me sometimes. Just do the first step of the task, only, on the first day wiht no expectations. Don’t tell yourself you are going to do one tenth or any other percentage. Tell yourself you are just going to look at the requirements (or whatever), get your desk cleared, sharpen the pencils or something like that. I call this “cracking the problem”. Once I’ve started, say by reading the heading on some document or taking the necessary papers out of my brief case and laying them out on the table, then I can stop if I want to. Sometimes I’ll go on a bit, maybe even reading a few pages of something and sometimes I discover that the task is really easy and I can just go ahead and do it.

Just for grins next week, lay out your stuff on Wednesday then walk away.
Heck, you’re are a procrastinator so you know you can do the work under the gun, unlike those lazy “organized” people. There’s no challange in their way.

18

I had (and still have) a huge tendency to procrastinate due to some other issues in my life and head.

I went through REBT therapy a few years ago, and getting my procrastination under control was one of the best side benefits I received.

Much of what I learned has been detailed above, but I’ll break down my specific process for you.

Schedule. Break down what you want to do/get done during a specific day.

Make lists of EVERYTHING. Break your projects down into their component parts and assign times to do them.

Incorporate downtime/fun time/rewards into your schedule. If you meet the deadlines before that time, add it on as a bonus. If you blow the deadline, skip the downtime until you’re caught up.

Here’s a typical day for me:

0630 Get up, let dogs out, pour coffee, feed dogs.

0645 Shower

0700 Prepare lunch

0715 Leave for work

0800 Arrive at work, check work email

0900 Review previous day’s assignments and updates statuses

0915 - 1230 Execute work list items

1230-1330 Lunch and web surf

1330 Resume work list items

1630 Prep next day’s work list

1700 Leave work

1745 Arrive home, let dogs out, web surf

1815 Prep and make dinner

1930 Housework, pay bills, etc.

2000 All me time to watch TV, read, play games, hang with my wife, etc.

2300 Bed

Weekends are similar but involve shopping lists, errands, yard work, dinner with friends, etc.

If I’m running behind on something, it does not go on the next day’s list. If I’m behind on my work task list items, I stay late until I’ve completed them. Everything gets cut from the “Me” time that starts at 8 p.m. most nights. That motivates me to get them done on time, since the only one my procrastination hurts is me.

The trick is to call yourself out on your shit when you start making excuses. “Oh, I can do that tomorrow.” Yeah, well, I told myself I’d do it today, and if I don’t I can’t watch what I want, can’t jump into that novel or into bed with my wife.

It takes practice and discipline, but procrastination is basically a lack of being willing to discipline yourself anyway. Once you decide to do it and equip yourself with the tools to do it (lists and schedules) you can do it.

It’s not easy, but it’s simple.

19

This is the way I deal with big projects that need to get done but aren’t necessarily time-sensitive. Start small, just like you said, and don’t worry about getting more than 0.1% of the project done. More often than not, each day’s work will increase to 0.2%, 0.4%, until it reaches critical mass and I end up working on the task almost constantly, until it’s mostly done or even completely finished. Even if that doesn’t happen, merely chipping away at the stone every day will eventually complete it.

Sorry for the belated response, I’ve been meaning to reply for some time but kept putting it off…

20

Not only this, but procrastination gives you an excuse for why your work was not perfect. You keep telling yourself you can’t start now because you don’t know enough. But by the time the deadline is two hours away you give yourself permission to submit an unperfect product because you have no other choice. The solution is to give yourself permission to do a bad job right away.

This works really well on writing projects. If you’re staring at a blank screen and don’t know how to start, give yourself permission to write a horrible first draft. It’s easier to create a good draft from a bad one than it is to create a good draft from nothing.

There is another way to fight procrastination which I do not often see mentioned. That is to redefine your identity. Decide to be someone who doesn’t procrastinate.

When you do something over and over again, that behavior defines you. If you run everyday, you’re a runner. If you procrastinate on homework everyday, you’re a student who doesn’t care. The problem is that people often try to change their behavior without changing their identity. The student will try to stop procrastinating, but when he starts doing homework early he’ll think “this isn’t who I am.” The solution is not to resist becoming a different person.

Another example. A guy who cheats on his wife wants to stop cheating. Instead of saying “I want to stop cheating”, he’s better off saying “I want to be a better Husband/Father/Person.”

Need more evidence that identity affects procrastination? Ask someone who does their work right away why they do not procrastinate. Chances are they will reply with something that starts with “I am.” “I am the head of accounting. I (i.e. the head of a department) do not slack off.”

Therefore, instead of saying I will stop procrastinating, decide to be someone who doesn’t procrastinate. Fill in the blank. I am a blank. Blanks do not procrastinate.

If you’re an attorney that doesn’t meet deadlines. Decide to be a better attorney. If you’re a student, decide to be someone who cares about your future. A student with family? Be someone who cares about your family’s future.