Habit do now

The habit of doing Nile Fiore right now is a tutorial about understanding and overcoming procrastination.

Procrastination is a mechanism to combat the fear of starting or completing a task. No one is lazy in everything: one can be unable to start a new chapter of the novel, but at the same time, calmly continue the obligatory reading of the course of his colleague.

A good way to start managing procrastination is to keep a procrastination journal, where you will jot down time, activity, your thoughts and feelings, your excuses, your attempts at solving a problem, and your resulting thoughts and feelings.

The usual procrastination cycle is as follows:

1. You allow the task to influence whether you are happy or not and your self-esteem.
2. You want to complete the task very well in order to satisfy your perfectionism. Thus, you increase the chance of failure, setting a very high bar.
3. You are afraid that you cannot meet the expectations that you have imposed on yourself. You cannot act.
4. You avoid problems through procrastination.
5. Right before the deadline you have to do something. You do, but not as well as you could in the time provided.

The first step in keeping procrastination: creating security. Failure should not be the end of the world. You need to remember that many very successful people had big failures. Your value as a person does not depend on the task.

To reduce the pressure that you feel, you can by conscious attitude to the language. Avoid "I have to," "I must," "I have to." Try to think "I want", "I choose" and "I decided."

"I need to" means that the current situation does not suit you and you are going to do something about it. This is a reason for action, not a reason for complaints.

“I have to finish” is a useless way of thinking. The best way: "When can I start?". Try to do business at least partially long before the deadline.

Partial work is an important aspect: you do not have to complete a large project at a time. Bite off a small, controlled piece and make it. The project may be large, but it can be mastered in smaller parts. Make a draft. Or one test chapter. It may even be easier to make a draft intentionally clumsily and edit it after that.

To say "I must be perfect" is inhumane. You are allowed to be human. Learn from mistakes, respect your limits. Do not criticize yourself strictly. Have compassion for yourself.

Take a vacation. Friends, free time, your partner. They are important and helpful to you. Include free time and sport in your schedule. Do not let this be of secondary interest for "when I find the time."

Imagine a specific goal and reward. Let them pull you. Do not think about the long path to the goal, think about the path that you have passed.

Do not overload yourself. You do not need to start with perfection. Take the time to learn and feel safe about the task. Do not detract from your achievements and progress.

Plan the opposite and come up with a lot of little deadlines. Start with an external deadline. Plan the opposite of what needs to be done to complete the task by this time. Plan your intermediate steps with your own much shorter deadlines.

Direct your energy into actions that will remove the threats that you fear.

Think of the worst scenario. What the worst can happen to you? Imagine what you will do in this situation. Are there alternatives? Maybe there are some advantages in the worst scenario? How can you reduce the likelihood of a worse scenario?

Sometimes people work on tasks quite well and productively, but as if they never complete them. The continuation of an almost completed task also requires energy. Just put this energy into finishing and you will receive rewards.

Excessive preparations before the beginning of the task is also simply procrastination. Limit preparations, and then just start. If you really need research and other preparations, you will find it later.

Do not be discouraged by the apparent lack of progress after you started. It often happens that the beginning is the most difficult and slowest stage. The time spent in the first phase is not lost, you have a better understanding of the problem and the task.

Fear of increasing demands for yourself after the successful completion of the current work is irrational. You will have the opportunity to make an informed decision later. Don't worry about it now.

If you feel that you need more time: are you sure that this is not just make-up? Not everything should be polished to a shine. Weigh the cost and benefits of continuing to work against its completion.

Use Unschedule ( comment Unschedule, as a negation of the word schedule). Unplanning is the same as planning, only it begins with the fact that you bring into the plan blocks of recreational activities and free time. You bring tasks into the plan, only after you have worked on them for half an hour without being distracted. This gives you a real overview of how much work you can do in principle. Tasks are never planned in advance, only are recorded after the fact.

Aim for thirty minutes of quality work without distractions. After that, take a break.

Failure to follow the above principles is inevitable. Be on your guard. Watch them. What were your thoughts and feelings at the time of the error? Why did you go back to the old approaches? Plan how you will fight them in the future.

Drop goals that cannot be achieved or started in the near future. Change plans and reschedule them for a later time. Do not let these goals hang without action in the direction of their execution.

PS from the translator: I thank yarryozzo for proofreading and editing