Procrastination

How to kill procrastination.

I do this simple trick to myself to fight procrastination. I just pretend I'm on live TV. Your mum. Your kids. Your old boss. That mentor who actually believed in you. All watching.

Every pause is noticed so the desire to refresh your Instagram feed goes to zero. Sounds dumb...but it isn't and it doesn't matter because it works.

Here's why it works (for me). Procrastination is a consequence problem. What it means is that nothing really bad happens when you delay that next task on your to-do list, so your brain keeps delaying it.

The live TV framing creates fake stakes for me and fake stakes are enough.

A few other things that actually work:

• This one I learned from the "Atomic Habits" book, so the idea is that you just start with two minutes. It's not "work for two minutes" but just agree to start.
• Another thing you can try is to name your next physical action for example: "Open the doc and write the first line". Your brain freezes on projects but can do small actions like this one pretty well.
• Remove the easy distractions and put your phone in another room, close all tabs but keep one open.
• Set a fake deadline by telling someone it'll be done by 2 pm. This concept works because you don't need them to care but you just need to believe they might check.
• Go and work in public: a cafe, co-working space, library...it doesn't matter. Strangers might be watching your screen over your sholuder and that's enough. It's very similar to the principle as the live TV trick.

Procrastination only works when you can bail so don't give yourself the option. Pretend someone's watching. They're not but somehow that's the whole trick.