A Simple Technique for Stopping Procrastination
If you’re a knowledge worker, chances are that you spend most of your day working on a computer. Do you find that it’s difficult to stay focused without getting distracted by checking email, doing web surfing, or checking news, sports scores, the weather, or your favorite blogs? I find it very difficult to stay focused on a boring task without checking something or other every few minutes. This is counterproductive and doesn’t make the boring task go away. It only delays the inevitable.
To gain control of this bad habit, I developed a simple technique that has helped me to cut down on the amount of useless surfing I do. The idea behind the technique is to disrupt the surfing by taking away most of its momentum. I will explain this in a minute.
The reason bad habits are hard to break is because they’ve become automatic. And anything automatic is by definition difficult to stop because once the action is initiated, it tends to go to completion. For example, my commute to and from work is pretty automatic. This is great on most days since it frees my mind to think about other things that require more deliberate thought or gives me a chance to listen to the radio. However, this process breaks down sometimes. Occasionally, when I need to make a stop at the supermarket on my way home, if I don’t think about it consciously as I’m driving, I’ll miss my turn because my body is still steering me automatically home. I reach my driveway and realize that I forgot to stop at the supermarket.
The technique for stopping unproductive web surfing involves inserting a disruption into your automatic routine until it becomes its own habit. The way I disrupt my bad habit is by keeping a notepad right in front of my computer that serves to capture all my impulses to surf the web while working. For example, as I’m working, I may have the following thought that triggers the bad habit, “Don’t know how to write this next sentence… so sleepy too…” and before I know it, I’m already clicking on something online. Instead of doing this, I write down what I want to do. Instead of clicking on something, I write down, “Want to check blog stats.” This serves two purposes: 1. it takes the momentum out of your impulse by introducing a pause between the time you have the impulse and its fulfillment, and 2. it creates a list of your future rewards. More on this in a minute.
My lists can become pretty long if I do it all day long. I might end up with 30-40 items, some of them repeats. If the thought comes up again, write it down again. The point of the exercise is to do this every time your have the impulse.
Now that you’ve written down your impulse, what next? Ask yourself, how do you feel? Do you feel a little less interested in doing the activity you just listed? I usually do. The act of writing it down somehow fulfills the need in a small way without wasting the time it would actually take to do the activity. Now that your small impulse is fulfilled, continue working but set a milestone for your current activity after which you will give yourself one reward. Use your list to choose a reward for reaching your milestone. For example, you are writing a memo and you tell yourself that you will finish the paragraph and then check the news headlines. Make sure not to segueway into something else before returning to work. It is too easy to check the news headlines and then click on something else and then on and on and on. Define ahead of time exactly the small reward you will use for reaching your milestone. It’s ok to have many rewards throughout the day as long as they are small, well-defined and are linked directly to a goal you set for yourself. Also make sure that the length of time spent on the reward is less than the amount of time you spend on meaningful work activity.
So far, I’ve been using this technique on and off for about a year. When I do it, I find it to be incredibly powerful. Like everything else, keeping up with it takes work and conscious effort but it is worthwhile. Ironically, most of the items that I put on my list lose their appeal when I look at them later and think about whether I still want to do them. That is an indicator that those activities are real time-wasters and not even desirable as rewards.
If you decide to try this technique, please let me know about your experiences.
Discussion Area - Leave a Comment