Overcoming Procrastination and Its Stress

Quite a number of books have been written about overcoming the habit of
procrastination and the stress that results from having neglected tasks
accumulating on your to-do list — a to-do list whose very creation itself is
probably another victim of procrastination. Surely the irony of a book written
for habitual procrastinators is not lost on you, with the conspicuous
chicken-and-egg conundrum of how to overcome procrastination in order to read a
book on how to overcome procrastination.

Most of those books boil down to three words: Just Do It. Of course, that is
also the Nike slogan, and a charitable interpretation of why the authors
refrained from distilling their 300- or 400-word tomes down to 3 or 4 words
would be that they feared legal retribution from Nike.

So how do you overcome procrastinating tendencies and Just Do It? The answer
might be found in the quick retort of the couch potato: I Just Do Not Want To
Do It. Attacking the problem logically, one would think that overcoming the
vice of procrastination is simply a matter of learning to switch on your wants
and desires. Clearly if you wanted to do something, there would be no
procrastination with which to contend. Therefore, what we are seeking is a
way to trick the mind into wanting to do something. Maybe we can find a way of
doing this if we examine some of the things that the mind naturally gravitates
toward and wants to do. We may thereby be able to find a useful principle that
will enable us to live up to the battle cry of Nike.

It is a basic tenet of both theoretical psychology and common sense alike that
we want to do that which makes us feel good. After all, there is no great
exertion against mental inertia, no epic battle against the forces of
sluggishness when it comes to sitting down for a gourmet meal and fine wine.
Nor does procrastination rear its head when it comes to enjoying a good movie
or a moment of intimacy with a loved one.

Barring some technological or medical breakthrough, however, doing the ironing
or balancing the checkbook will never take on the tremendous appeal of more
sensuous and sensual enjoyments. Where does that leave us?

As any used-car salesman will tell you, if you cannot hide the unappealing
nature of the Volvo, put some lipstick on the pig by throwing in a chrome CD
player. And when it comes to procrastination, we have many gold toilet seats at
our disposal. Simply take that chore which is inherently uninspiring and let it
piggyback on something much more exciting.

One way of creating a symbiotic relationship between that which you would love
to do and that which you would love to toss into a top hat for a vanishing act
at a magic show is to employ the principle of positive reinforcement. Make your
enjoyment of that which you would love to do contingent upon the performance of
that which you would rather delegate to that ever-faithful servant of the
chronic procrastinator, Tomorrow. Your mom knew all about this clever principle
when she made your ice cream dessert contingent upon the downing of your
spinach.

A deep part of the human brain understands only two phenomena: pleasure and
pain. We have already discussed how to associate pleasure with the performance
of that which you would keep putting off for another day, left to your own
devices. The flip side of the cranial coin is associating the idea of pain with
the non-performance of your chore. Introduce dire consequences for a failure to
act. One extreme method of doing this might be to have someone you trust help
you record a video of yourself in a very embarrassing situation. Then if you
fail to Just Do It, your video will grace the pages of YouTube or the inboxes
of your coworkers.

A hybrid approach combining a pleasure factor with a pain factor may be your
best bet for overcoming the paralyzing and stress-producing habit of
procrastination.