Scott Young says:

Procrastination is life’s way of telling you that you hate your work.

The best way to be more productive isn’t to have more lists, action items and goals. It’s to love what you do. Sorry for all the people in shit jobs, but it’s true.

I think this is partially true. Procrastination is sometimes life’s way of telling you that you don’t like whatever you’re procrastinating about. In that case, it’s usually a good idea to figure out how to do less of that and more of what you want to do. But … I have things I really like doing, and I procrastinate. I used to procrastinate a lot (I still do, but less). It’s double-frustrating when I procrastinate on these sorts of things, because I want to do them … but don’t. Argh.

The procrastination came from the way I habitually conceptualized things: in particular, thinking of things as all-or-nothing (I would think of what it would take to complete the task, instead of to just start it), and perfectionism (I had to do it perfectly, the first time). Not surprisingly, perfection = pressure = pain = avoidance.

So, how do you break procrastination and just get started?

1. Say “Let’s just get started, and see what happens” to change how you might be implicitly conceiving the situation.

2. Think of what you’re doing as a first attempt, not something that has to be final and perfect. You can then get it to perfection later on if you want to.

3. Break tasks into smaller tasks. For example, if it’s 1 hr. of work, start with 30 min.

4. Moodling. To start, just moodle around, until you find what you want to focus on and get into flow.

5. Daily habits. Create habits for an action, starting small and building. Part of this involves figuring out how to make the activity net enjoyable.

Have fun increasing the percentage of time you get right to working on something!