What Everyone Gets Wrong About Procrastination

Many people think procrastination is the opposite of productivity. So trying to fix procrastination with productivity hacks like time management apps or optimizing your workflow makes sense, right? But that’s the tricky thing about procrastination: it’s a mental phenomenon, so we need those psychological tricks. Making changes to the way we *think* rather than the way we work, is key.

Thanks to Jorge Cham for taking the time to chat, and to the ANU SCOM class for their notes on an earlier version of this video.

[braincraft]

The real irony is that I put off releasing this video for months.

Thanks for bearing with me while I’m on the road (with questionable audio and even MORE questionable interior design 🦙)

[NotDavDraws]

Watching this video while procrastinating is what I call a pro-gamer move.

[juliegolick]

I often find that I procrastinate when a task feels overwhelming. One way I can beat that is to ask, "what is the smallest next task I can do to move me forward?" Maybe that's just opening an email and reading it. Maybe it's opening a template file and renaming it with the project name. Maybe it's writing a single sentence. Whatever it is, I find that once I've actually started, I tend to keep going on the NEXT smallest task, and eventually I realize that I've just started working. Hopefully this will be helpful to other people too!

[coreyghayes]

Saved this video. I'll watch it later.

[Tuysh]

BC: Stop using should statements

My brain: You really shouldn't use should... smh

[livetwilightever]

"Procrastination isn't about time management; it's about emotion management." ~my therapist, also a lot of other people

[MindMessed]

Illamanate was the pun I didn’t know I needed.

[shawniscoolerthanyou]

Life hack: if you want to clean your home, just enroll in a phd program. In the days preceding your manuscript being due, you will clean like crazy.

[FuncleChuck]

I’m not lazy. The job just isn’t urgent (or necessary) most of the time

[OrangeYetti]

It also helps me forgive myself by coming to videos like this & realising that so many others have this problem. Especially if it begins to give you anxiety, so many people face that same feeling and it helps to put it into perspective. It's not just a "me" problem - it's completely normal.

[hamilpatel]

I gotta write this down:
Procrastination -- actions
Productivity -- inefficient work system
I'm going to be sharing this video with my peers working in a school based research lab. Always such great information.

[sagittarius]

I'm so frustrated by procrastination that I ended up reading a lot of researches on it. Sometimes I think, I should've pursued the research on procrastination😂

[Trdis]

Procrastinate by watching the video...my favourite

[kennetha.]

It’s tough though. It feels like when I come up with a solution, my brain simultaneously come up with a counter-solution to keep the procrastination dream alive lol.

[TheAdmiralBacon]

I think a big thing that helped me was recognising that my "laziness", my behaviour of procrastination and even outright just not /doing/ things I wanted to do, isn't a character flaw. It's a symptom. Adding this notion that procrastinating isn't the opposite of producticity has helped even more, so thank you

[Mangofretchen]

What helps me is telling myself "It doesn't need to perfect. It just needs to be done."

[stephanmarcus]

Many procrastinators have a weak or non-existent completion high: that feeling of satisfaction that you get when you've finished a task. Some of us sometimes even lack the feeling of relief, or just a reduction in our level or anxiety, at the end of a piece of work. In such cases there is no emotional payoff in work, relationships, hobbies or even self-care. The only way to get anything done is to let your inner bully drive you or to wait until the anxiety of missing a deadline is greater than the revulsion or anxiety at starting a task.

Procrastinators aren't lazy. Many of us will spend hours at something that requires more effort and focus than our assigned task; doing something with no deadline, that need not be successful and that may be unfamiliar is far preferable to normal work.

[spacemanspiff]

Procrastination isn’t equivalent to laziness if the work eventually gets done: This idea might help me start forgiving myself for procrastinating

[Urzl]

Phew.. Now I won't feel bad when I binge watch youtube instead of writing that literature review.

[Lfppfs]

Very nice video! It seems to me that we all really need to stop falling into the procrastination guilt trap by changing the way we think about productivity and procrastination!