Health

I am prone to having periods where I am extremely productive and periods where I have to push myself to start working. It seems like I am always in one of those two modes, never just right.

While this has been an ongoing struggle, I have found ways to better cope with my tendency to procrastinate. The one that has made all the difference for me was learning more about the research on procrastination by the researcher Tim Pychyl. Instead of being a problem of time management or lack of discipline, his group’s research explains that procrastination is a problem with emotional regulation. Procrastination is due to some discomfort associated with a task. This framework by the Centre for Clinical Interventions explains this best.

In their framework, they show that procrastination begins with a task or goal such as those related to work, family, health or self-development. However, even before we begin doing these tasks, we might have already made some assumptions, both correct and incorrect, about the task. These unhelpful rules include the fear of failure, the fear of catastrophe, having low self-confidence, wanting to seek pleasure, needing to be in charge and feeling depleted energy. These assumptions then drive discomfort. Wanting to avoid these discomforts, we then think of excuses for delaying the task. We resort to doing something else more comfortable. The problem is that this creates both positive and negative feedback loops. On one hand, working on the unrelated task makes us feel better. On the other hand, avoiding the actual task gives us more discomfort and further reinforces our wrong assumptions. At some point, the actual negative feeling of the task is replaced by our associated negative feeling with the task. This then restarts the cycle of procrastination.

In a famous story in Homer’s Odyssey, Ulysses and his crew had to sail past an island where the Sirens lived. These sirens were known to sing so beautifully that listeners would lose control of themselves, ultimately luring them to their deaths. Ulysses wanted to hear how the Sirens’ sounded like. However, he knew that he would not be capable of thinking clearly once he was bewitched by their beautiful voice. Thus, he instructed his crew to block their ears with wax. Ulysses also asked his crew to tie him to the ship’s mast so that he would not be able to do anything stupid, once he is under the Sirens’s charm. He also told them to not change the course of the ship whatever happens and even, to attack him in the worst case that he escapes.

This tale is instructive on how we can pursue habits that are just too difficult to achieve with our limited willpower. It’s easy to plan that we will stop eating sweets and start exercising. However, when we are already in the moment, when the temptation is already in front of us, it may just be too difficult to resist.

Thus, we need to find a way to tie ourselves to the mast. In my case, I have resorted to this app Beeminder. It allows you to track your goals for free. The catch is if you do not reach your goal, that is when you have to pay them. The first time you break your pact, you pay $5. The next time, it then becomes $10 and so on.

Three years ago, I was able to lose a lot of weight from the service. However, I’ve regained it since them. I’ve restarted my journey again.

As seen by the plot, I’ve lost weight since I started in the beginning of August. I started at 81.3 kg and now am at 77.3 kg. On my way, I’ve broken my promised rate of losing 0.7 kg per week, two times. I’ll periodically update my blog how it is going.

Procrastination cycle

Boss as a service