The Briefest “How to Beat Procrastination” Guide You’ll Possibly Ever See
BS-free research and years of experience compressed into 3 minutes
“Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone” ― Pablo Picasso
Procrastination is the most surreptitious killer of dreams, aspirations, and potential.
The more you put things off, the wider the gulf between “What Is” and “What Could Be” becomes.
But don’t beat yourself over this — even the best of us procrastinate. The key is in mastering how not to procrastinate:
- Don’t rely on willpower. Willpower is finite and unpredictable. So is motivation. Instead, rely on building meaning-fueled habits, routines, and systems.
- Make distractions hard to access. Flip the phone on DND and pop it at the far end of your room. Block apps, sites, and searches using ColdTurkey Blocker. Get someone to latch your room from the outside for an hour.
- Make your tasks easier to do. If you want to hit the gym first thing in the morning — set out your shoes, grab a fresh pair of socks, prepare your protein shaker, and pack your gym bag the previous night itself.
- Taper off the dopamine fest. The neurotransmitter dopamine drives your motivation—but social media, porn, video games, binge-watches, and junk food leach it away. Taper off them — even better, hop on a 14-day dopamine detox.
- Find your specific “Why”. As Nietzsche once said, “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”. Why do you want to do a certain thing? What deep-seated reasons are driving you? Probe for solid answers.
- Wield mental associations. When you repeatedly do a certain thing similarly, your brain “associates” it with the specific time, place, and environment. Eg: Writing at 5 PM armed with a latte at your local cafe every day.
- Incentivize the task with a reward. Be it a cheat meal, a date, or an anime binge, schedule your “pleasures” after your “hard-but-meaningful” tasks — a brutal workout, work assignment, or your passion project.
- Wield the 2-minute rule. Be it replying to an email or making your bed, if a task takes less than 2 minutes, do it right away — even better, batch-complete such tasks.
- Build custom-tailored routines and systems. When are you the most productive? What activities spike you up with energy? What drain you? Your preferred pre-work rituals? Your go-to leisure activities? Build your system based on the answers.
- Last but not least: be willing to improve. Without the genuine drive to improve yourself and your life, nothing you do will help you keep procrastination at bay for long.
Also, stay patient. Your procrastination will not vanish overnight — it’s the result of decades where you meticulously “practiced” it 24/7.
Now, let the practice of not procrastinating bear fruit.
