It's not just deadlines – unexpected or otherwise – that can get in the way of being productive. There will be times when you struggle to get started and find yourself demotivated, off‐course, or discouraged. There will be interruptions, delays, hold‐ups, and setbacks.
Let's start with getting started. If you're in the habit of putting off getting started on a task or project, you've probably become very good at coming up with other activities that are, all of a sudden, more important or enjoyable.
It's easy to persuade yourself, for example, that filling in your expense claims or finishing writing a report can wait. Right now, cleaning the kitchen is more important. Of course, under normal circumstances, cleaning the kitchen wouldn't be something you'd be in a rush to get started on – but compared with filling in your expense claims, marking those essays, or getting started on writing that report, a bit of cleaning becomes an attractive alternative! Or maybe you've persuaded yourself that you'll get started on that new project once you've answered a few e‐mails. Perhaps you've convinced yourself that you really must; it's imperative those e‐mails get answered right now.
How does this happen? Why is it that despite your good intentions, it's so easy to put things off? A good way to understand it is by imagining that you have two selves: your ‘present self’ and your ‘future self’. When you set goals for yourself, you're making plans for your future self and your future life. And it looks good!
However, while you can have good intentions for your future self, only your present self can do something about them. And when the time comes to actually do something, you're no longer making a choice for your future self. Now you're in the present and you are having to make a decision for your present self.
So, the present self and the future self are in conflict. ‘I ought to get started. But do I really have to do this now? Can't it wait till later? I really should do something. But I can't be bothered.’
Your future self wants to have achieved something; but the present self can't make the effort. Why?
Your good intentions come from the rational, reasoning part of your brain – the part that thinks things through and recognizes the benefits of doing something and eventually achieving it. However, in the present moment, it's easy for emotions to take over; feelings of apathy and resentment can undermine your intentions and convince you not to do something.
Perhaps, though, you feel overwhelmed by pressure. Putting things off can often be a way of coping with any uncertainty or anxiety you feel about the activity. If what you have to do is something new – an unfamiliar task – you might be unsure about how to do it or be unsure about how much time it will take to complete. Furthermore, if it's not urgent – if the deadline is far off – it's easier to do nothing or to do a familiar task instead.
You tell yourself, for example, that you're too tired or that you don't have enough time or you've got other more important things that need to be done. Or perhaps you realize that your expectations about what you could get done are unrealistic. Maybe you set your sights too high? Perhaps you have unrealistic ideas about what you're capable of or ‘should’ be doing.
Whatever the reason, you're procrastinating.
Even though you know the benefits of achieving whatever it is you're aiming to do, and that there may be consequences if you don't get going, it's not enough; you can't always rely on long‐term rewards and consequences to motivate your present self.
It's only when future consequences become present consequences that you get going. For example, imagine you have an essay or a report to write. You've known about it for weeks and continued to put it off. You feel irritated and guilty, but not enough to do anything about it. But, of course, a few days before the deadline, the future consequences turn into present consequences! You write and complete that report hours before it's due.
Not all procrastination is equal, though. It can – as you will have read in the last chapter – be a form of prioritization; maybe you have to wait till the last minute to get started because the pressure forces you to focus.
So, are you using procrastination effectively or does it get in the way of you being productive?
The thing is, procrastination can be more painful than the actual work. In order to get motivated, you tell yourself that you ‘should’ do this, you ‘ought’ to make a start, and you ‘must’ get going. Your inner critic reprimands you and you give yourself a hard time. But remonstrating with yourself doesn't make you want to get on with it, it just makes you feel guilty, frustrated, and resentful. Bad enough that you keep putting things off, but if you feel guilty about not having met your good intentions, you keep the negative feelings going and you find it even harder to motivate yourself the next time you attempt to get started.
The guilt and anxiety that you feel while procrastinating are often more unpleasant than the effort and energy you have to put in while you're working. The problem is not doing the work, it's starting the work. Imagine how much less guilt, stress, and frustration you would feel if you could somehow just make yourself do the things you don't want to get started on. Not to mention how much more efficient and effective you would be.
We've already seen that one way to make a start on something is to wait until it's urgent and you really have to make a start. There is, though, another way to overcome procrastination. It's a way of thinking and doing that will give you the kickstart you need.
If you're like most people, you believe that before you can do anything – in order to get started on something – you need to feel like you want to take action. It's not true. You don't need to feel like doing it.
Waiting until you really feel like doing something is a sure‐fire way for things not to get done. As novelist and prolific writer Stephen King points out: ‘Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.’
Stop wallowing in guilt and resentment. Accept how you feel. It's normal not to feel like it in the beginning. It's normal to feel that you're not ‘in the zone’.
Just do it. In times like this, accept your feelings and get on with it. Do the work.
Motivation comes from doing. The fact is, you will get into the zone once you actually get started. You just need to be prepared to move through that reluctant feeling on your way to achieving what you want to get done. That's what productive people do. They often don't feel like getting started either.
Carla works three days a week as a freelance copy editor. She says: ‘I enjoy my work but I find it really hard to get started in the mornings and after lunch. What gets me going though, isn't the fact that I have strong willpower (I don't) it's because I know that “feeling like it” rarely comes before taking action.’
‘I find that if I just sit down at my computer, although I don't feel like it initially, I make a start and before I know it I'm absorbed in what I'm doing and I'm just getting on with it. So that's what gets me started – knowing that I will feel like it if I just make that big but short effort to get started.’
This approach is effective because of one simple reason: the physics of real life. As Sir Isaac Newton discovered, objects at rest tend to stay at rest. But objects in motion tend to stay in motion. This is just as true for humans as it is for falling apples! When you generate the physical motions, they in turn trigger the thoughts – the positive mindset – which correspond to that physical action.
If you're waiting until you feel ready – until you really feel like it – before you take action, you may find that acting ‘as if’ will help. Acting ‘as if’ is a way to create motivation to do something even though you may not feel like doing it. It simply requires you to make a start on something ‘as if’ you're only going to spend a short amount of time – five minutes, ten minutes, or half an hour – on it. The momentum takes over and you find yourself easily carrying on with whatever it is you intended to do. All it takes is a little effort at the start.
Whatever it is that you need to make a start on, make a deal with yourself: tell yourself you'll do it for just five minutes. Instead of putting things off; instead of trying to, for example, answer all those e‐mails or sort through all that paperwork or arrange the whole trip or event, tell yourself you'll do it for just five minutes. Start doing something immediately, without thinking and giving your mind time to come up with excuses. You may well find that once you get going, you end up continuing well past the five‐minute mark you decided on. If even the smallest task seems too hard, tell yourself you're just going to do five minutes right now.
Once you start doing it, it's easier to continue doing it. Take action and things will flow from there. That's why it is important to have a plan for the steps you need to take; it's easier if you're clear about what you're going to do first and what step will come next.
Decide what is the one thing you can do, then do that one thing. Give it your full attention. Answer that one e‐mail. Make that first phone call. Google the information you need. Start filling in that form. Just clear out one drawer. Do one sit up. Put just one thing on eBay. Just read the instructions. Paint one wall. Make that one appointment. Write the first paragraph. You'll find that once you get started, you can keep going.
After a short time, the positive feelings which you would like from doing that activity start to emerge naturally. It's a positive feedback loop – acting ‘as if’ influences further thoughts and actions. Don't wait until you feel like it to take action. Get going and your thoughts and feelings will change. The momentum takes over and you'll find yourself easily carrying on with whatever it is you intended to do. All it takes is a little effort at the start.
Remember: the guilt and anxiety that you feel while procrastinating are often worse than the effort and energy you have to put in while you're working. The problem is not doing the work, it's starting the work. So just get started!
As well as acting ‘as if’, there are other ways you can make it easier for yourself to get started. The American writer Ernest Hemingway said ‘I always worked until I had something done and I always stopped when I knew what was going to happen next. That way I could be sure of going on the next day.’
Whatever it is you want to do, spend a minute or two setting it up so that it's easier to go forward than to do nothing. Want to go for a swim or a run each morning but can't get your act together? Put your swimming costume or running gear on before you get properly dressed. That way you're far more likely to make a start.
Trying an ‘if … then …’ approach is another way to make it easier to do something; to make it more likely that you will do something than not. You simply connect what you need or have to do with an already established habit. If, for example, you already take the rubbish out each night, then water your plants at the same time. You link something you want to do with something you already do – an already established habit.
Watering the plants when you take the rubbish out is, of course, task batching (as explained in Chapter 3). An ‘if … then …’ approach can also be done with things that can be multitasked. For example, you might cook a meal every evening. You might also be learning a foreign language. So, you could link the cooking with the learning. ‘If I'm cooking, then I'll listen to a language lesson.’
And finally, another way to use the ‘if … then …’ strategy is to link doing something with a reward for doing it. ‘If I answer all these e‐mails then I'll have a coffee/sit out in the sunshine/go for a run/watch an episode of the box set I'm currently watching.’
What, though, if the reason that you can't get started is because you can't decide between one course of action and another? Suppose, for example, you still haven't got started on decorating a room because you can't decide on what colours you want. And you can't decide whether to wallpaper or paint the walls. You spend ages agonizing over the pros and cons of each option: you overthink the situation.
Whether it's decorating a room or any other task, you're not confident that you'll definitely be making the ‘right’ choice and the ‘best’ decision. You're worried about the consequences of a ‘wrong’ decision. In fact, sometimes you're so undecided you make no decision. And then nothing gets done. How do you make the right choice? How do you know that what you choose will work out and, if it doesn't, that you won't regret not making a different decision? Quite simply, you don't, can't, and won't. You can never know for sure when you make a decision that it's going to turn out well.
In any one situation, identify what exactly is important and what exactly you're hoping to achieve. Trust your intuition, too. When you do feel strongly that a particular path or choice is the right one, know that it's because your decision is in line with your aims.
Do make a well‐informed decision but know that the pursuit of more information can be a way of putting off a choice. Don't wait until conditions are perfect, get started now. If new information comes to light after you have made your decision, you can alter your course then.
Still not sure? Have courage. Accept uncertainty; make a choice despite possible unknowns. Know there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ decision. When you're finding it difficult to make a decision, for each option ask yourself: ‘What's the worst that can happen? How might I deal with that?’ Have a back‐up plan. Know that you can make a choice and if things don't work out you will already have thought of what to do to manage what happens.
So, just find a way to get started and things will keep rolling along. Is it that simple? Well, no. There'll still be times when you struggle; when you'll find yourself off‐course, bored, frustrated, and discouraged. You get started, you're determined to make some headway, but you come across some problems and you start flagging. You give up or give in. You've lost both your will and your power! How does this happen?
Remember: your good intentions come from the rational, reasoning part of your brain – the part that thinks through what's good for you. When things get difficult, feelings of deprivation and frustration can undermine your intentions and convince you that it's easier to give in and let go. But as someone once said, ‘You didn't come this far to only come this far'. And, fortunately, there are a number of things you can do that will help you persist; to keep going even when you don't feel like carrying on any more.
Persistence needs a degree of willpower. Willpower is the ability to do what you intended to do even when you don't feel like it. Together with self‐control, willpower gives you the ability to keep focused and achieve whatever it is you want to get done. But if it helps you fulfil your good intentions, why, for so many of us, is it so difficult to come by? Because, according to many studies, we all have a limited amount of willpower and it's easily used up.
When you have to use willpower and self‐control in one situation, there's less willpower available to you for other situations, even if those situations are totally different from each other. Spend an hour (reluctantly) putting together a presentation, and even though you intended to write your Christmas cards or empty the dishwasher, your brain doesn't have enough energy left to motivate you. You've used up your willpower and fallen victim to ‘can't power’.
In a number of studies over recent years, Florida State University's Dr Roy Baumeister and colleagues have discovered that making decisions and choices, taking initiatives, and suppressing impulses all seem to draw on the same well of mental energy. They found that straight after accomplishing a task that required them to use their willpower, people are far more likely to struggle with other willpower‐related tasks.
Baumeister and colleagues all come to the same conclusion: self‐control and willpower can be used up.
Spend the afternoon filling out your passport renewal form, for example, and your brain doesn't have enough energy left to complete that job application; it's too tired to motivate you. Your resolve goes out the window and you put the job application to one side.
But although you may have limited willpower and self‐discipline, it can be increased and strengthened. By working on small tasks that you are reluctant to do, you can gain inner strength and develop the ability to overcome your mind's resistance. You can actually train your mind to obey you!
Which of the things on the list below would you rather not do?
Try doing just one small thing you don't like doing every day for two weeks. Get it done no matter what. Then, when you've completed it, be aware of how you feel for having achieved it. You'll find that when you're able to make yourself do even the smallest things you don't feel like doing, you'll feel more in control and pleased with yourself. This can lead to more positive thinking; for example, ‘I can make myself walk up the stairs instead of taking the lift every day, that means I can also …’.
Developing your willpower helps you to stick to your good intentions, it can help you override the thoughts and behaviour that sabotage those intentions.
Even if you might not feel like making a start and getting on with something, there are things you can do to make it easier.
A study carried out in 2013 by Wilhelm Hofmann at the University of Chicago suggested that instead of constantly denying themselves, people who appear to have strong willpower and self‐discipline are less likely to put themselves in situations that might tempt them in the first place. They ‘avoid problematic desires and conflict’, says the study's co‐author Professor Kathleen Vohs.
You can do the same.
As well as using strategies like ‘acting as if’ and ‘if … then …’ to help make it more likely that you'll get going and keep going with something, you can also avoid ‘problematic desires and conflict’. You can remove temptations and distractions.
A distraction is anything that diverts your attention, anything that you allow yourself to be sidetracked by. Something is only a distraction if you pay attention to it. It can be a pleasant diversion and can either come from yourself – something you're attracted to – or can come as an interruption from someone else. Distractions often mean a lot of energy and effort are needed to get you back to your main task. But distractions are in your control.
Only you know what they are and only you can avoid, manage, or minimize them. If it's your phone or e‐mails that distract you, turn them off. If you get 20 e‐mails and texts a day, this means 20 distractions to your day. Stop reading every e‐mail as it arrives. Switch off instant alerts and, instead, choose a specific time when you will check your inbox. Here are some more suggestions:
Do what you can to avoid the situation presenting itself; make the things you struggle to ignore less available and you'll be in a much stronger position. This will minimize the number of times you have to draw on your willpower and self‐discipline. It will also save your mental strength for when you really need it.
No matter what you do to avoid distractions and make it easier to persist, you can't control everything; life will always have something unexpected to throw your way. Things happen: the weather changes, a road is closed, someone you were relying on drops out, you get ill or sustain an injury, or it costs more money than you expected.
When there are setbacks and difficulties, looking to lay blame or making excuses about your predicament rarely, if ever, helps the situation. Instead, you need to refocus your attention on what you can do that could help you move forward. If you really want to achieve something, there's usually a way. And, most likely, there's more than one way. As someone once said: ‘If plan A doesn't work, the alphabet has 25 more letters.’
Right from when you start planning a task or project you can anticipate potential problems and possible solutions. For each step, think about what could go wrong. What's the worst that could happen? What, for example, will you do if you run out of time, money, or the ability to do something?
Thinking like this is not designed to discourage you and put you off doing something. Quite the opposite. It's making it more likely you'll be successful. How come? Because you've anticipated the potential problems and you've already thought through how you would deal with them. You've already thought about who could help and what support, advice, finances, or resources you could draw on.
Know that when you let go of what you can't control and look at what you can control, you take a step towards getting back on track.
As well as planning for some of the major problems that could crop up, you can plan for the more minor delays that can slow your progress. Meetings get cancelled. People run late. Wi‐fi stops working. Things break down and need to be fixed.
From client meetings to dentist appointments, in any one day or week there's usually someone or something keeping you waiting. And if you're a parent of children or young teenagers, waiting times may be a normal part of your life with your child's football practice, swimming lessons, music lessons, etc.
Waiting time can be the most frustrating time if you let it become so. With just a bit of planning, though, you can turn waiting time into productive time. Instead of getting wound up and annoyed with waiting times or when small delays occur, take advantage of them. If you can use these short periods to get small things done, not only will you achieve more but you'll also feel you have some semblance of control.
Make a list of the things you could do to use this time effectively. It could include some of these things:
It's really not that hard to make good use of your time. Have a list of small, easy tasks you can do and do something from that list whenever minor delays and hold‐ups occur. You can also draw on this list of small jobs if you need to start your day with easy tasks that help you get into the swing of things.
Of course, you don't have to do anything productive at all. You could use this time to take a break, go for a walk, read a book, play a game, watch something on a screen, do a crossword puzzle or sudoku.