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- This Is Way More Devastating Than Procrastination!
This Is Way More Devastating Than Procrastination!
There's a subtle trick that your mind is playing on you... It prevents you from ever reaching your goals until you fix it!
You know the best part about procrastination?
It’s obvious to spot.
You don’t need a rocket scientist to tell you that you’re avoiding the work on achieving your goals when you’re playing Call of Duty or you cleared the final boss on Netflix.
There’s something way worse than procrastination:
Productive Procrastination!
Here’s rule #1 of problem solving:
Before you can find the solution to a problem, you must first be aware that a problem exists and the desire to fix it. Overcoming procrastination isn’t an easy feat, but you at least have the basic requirements down.
Productive procrastination is way more sneaky!
Have you ever experienced this?
You’ve got a daunting project you should be working on. You sit down at your desk. And… it looks kinda messy. So you find yourself cleaning up your desk. As you’re busy anyway, you clean the entire room, do laundry and some other errands as well.
You feel accomplished as you wipe the sweat off your forehead.
But…
4 hours have passed and you haven’t even started on the project…
That’s productive procrastination!
I also call it Feelgood Procrastination.
After a day of wasting time you feel guilty, don’t you? You think “Man, I should really have been doing X” when you’re laying in bed. But all you did was watching Netflix.
Your mind wants to avoid that feeling of guilt!
So your mind will just do the task, right?
Right….?
Unfortunately… nope.
Your mind will simply distract you with things that feel productive, but aren’t.
How to Overcome Productive Procrastination
I use a 2-step process to stay on track and do this:
Before I go to bed, I write down the 3 main things that I need to do tomorrow. By doing this, I identify the main task. With this knowledge I cannot fool myself into saying it’s been “A productive day” if those things haven’t been finished.
It’s like installing a scoreboard, an objective measure of procrastination.
Secondly, I hold myself accountable at night. Before going to bed, I review my three tasks of the day and whether or not I got them done. I evaluate myself in key areas of life and I think about things to do better next day.
These simple habits will skyrocket your productivity.
Steal my productivity system!
(You’ll also get my personal worksheets)
Drag your “productive” procrastination into the light and start dealing with it!
Cheers,
Maikel