Procrastination: how we can overcome our unwillingness to start
“…Today I am going to start writing that chapter -for sure: 8.30 am, coffee cup on the table, mobile phone and landline off, laptop running… ok, I will just quickly check my emails then I’ll start…. Oops, some important ones! Need to answer immediately, of course … Now it’s 9.50 am, my coffee is cold, I will just quickly get a new one… I find a little mess in the kitchen, so I just take care of that quickly…oh, almost midday! I am hungry and prepare myself a healthy lunch – with chopping vegetables which takes some time as well… after lunch, I am tired and cannot work well, so I take a break …”
This is how some of my days looked like when I started to write academic theses, articles or project proposals. And I really felt bad about it. Some days I felt busy but at the end of the day, there was no progress concerning my thesis tasks. I knew it was not ok and at the same time I did not know what to do about it.
Self-sabotaging behavior
Research[1] in the field identifies this as a self-sabotaging behavior that is typical for PhD students and I dare say not only for them. Meanwhile I am also working with people from other work domains and they have the exact same issues. Now, I do not want to write about that behavior in depth but rather offer a way of how to overcome it. Here I offer one easy hands-on strategy that has worked for many of my clients but there are more ways if this doesn’t work for you. Don’t give up!
What is keeping you from working?
So, to make a long story short: you need to understand why you procrastinate. And that is not so hard, really. Once you know, you can overcome it.
My coaching experience showed me that the task ahead causes many to feel or think something unpleasant, such as “My writing style is so NOT ACADEMIC yet. I don’t like it” - So you might not want to confront yourself with your present skill level in writing. Or “I have no idea how to start writing. I have so little experience and will never be able to describe what I think within the network of already existing theories and results. I will make a fool of myself.” Or maybe also “It is too difficult, I don’t know how to do this.”- So you might be afraid of the reactions your piece of work might produce or just feel overwhelmed.
Procrastination is actually numbing an unpleasant feeling
This means that procrastination is a form of numbing that unpleasant feeling. We don’t sit with that feeling but rather get another coffee, clean the fridge, watch Netflix. Whatever gives us a better feeling is preferred. We human beings do that in order to avoid pain – in this case: social or emotional pain.
Now there are two ways to approach that: The Cognitive Approach which basically teaches you to think better thoughts. If you think better thoughts your feelings become more pleasant and your resistance to work diminishes. This is a mid- or long-term approach that I will write a post on its own. For now, here comes the short-term, hands-on approach:
The Behavioral Approach: start with an easy, tiny task that does not involve any decision-making. Let’s say you want to write a new paragraph. So, you note down tiny actionable tasks, such as: 1. re-read the notes from article x, y, z and 2. come up with a golden thread/basic structure for the paragraph in the form of bullet-points, .... It needs to be a task that seems doable to you; you can just grab the task and act on it; there is no decision-making, no pondering on how to do it involved at this stage. That’s why I recommend to plan the next writing session before you finish the old one. So before shutting down your computer, you take 10 minutes to write your next steps on a sticky note and put it on top of your documents or in your laptop. This is the first thing you see the next morning you sit down to work.
It works with any task - not just with writing or dissertations.
Go try this.
NOW!
[1] Kearns, H., Gardiner, M., & Marshall, K. (2008). Innovation in PhD completion: The hardy shall succeed (and be happy!). Higher Education Research and Development, 27(1), 77-89.