How to Stop Procrastinating: 7 Foolproof Methods

The act of procrastination is like avoiding that monster under the bed that none of us want to face.

We all know what procrastination is. It’s the act of kicking the can down the road, of not doing important things, but mainly it’s about avoiding pain.

In this article, I’m going to talk about the roots of procrastination, where they come from, and how to beat it.

Let’s stop putting things off and start putting in.

[toc]

The Procrastination Mindset and Why It’s Hard to Beat

Do not put your work off till to-morrow and the day after; for a sluggish worker does not fill his barn, nor one who puts off his work: industry makes work go well, but a man who puts off work is always at hand-grips with ruin. – Perses

Productivity and how to live a good life are two intertwined issues that have occupied the mental space of some of the world’s most brilliant minds for long stretches of time.

Many years ago (I’m talking MANY), people believed that laziness, procrastination, what have you – was a sin.

If you found it hard to stop procrastinating it was because you were full of sin or had an evil spirit around you.

For this, the person was instructed to pray to their higher power or go visit their local priest.

Someone who overcame procrastination and laziness was seen as someone who was “godly” and close to the divine.

Now, this may seem laughable when viewed from the modern day lens of “scientific materialism”, but this mental model is quite helpful.

We’ll look at why it helps to look at procrastination a spiritual illness later.

For now, let’s take a look at why procrastination and laziness are so attractive.

We humans love taking the path of least resistance.

All living beings want to conserve as much energy as possible, so this makes a laziness a no brainer. Fair enough. Most of our modern day conveniences wouldn’t exist without this in-built desire.

Many of the things we do are shortcuts that save time and energy. Think of 2-day shipping and one click ordering. Think of fast food and eating out.

Unfortunately, this desire to “take the easy way out” will completely fuck you up if left unchecked.

From a sociological standpoint, behaviors that require an expenditure in time and/or energy are those that are most rewarded. Think of:

• A lean and ripped body
• High levels of achievement in your respective field
• Financial independence and money in the bank

All of these are things that aren’t achieved by just sitting around. They lie at the other side of work and self-discipline.

Unfortunately, procrastination is tough to beat for two reasons:

• It offers good feedback (or even NO feedback)
• It’s invisible

When you first step into the gym, you don’t become an IFBB bodybuilder.

When you save one dollar, you don’t become a millionaire.

There is no instantaneous feedback, so it is easy to pass over the goal for instant pleasure right now that does deliver positive feedback.

You also don’t realize the small effects of little actions over time, so procrastination seems like an innocent way to do things “tomorrow”.

Unfortunately, tomorrow offers more low-hanging fruit to chew on because of our 24/7 “always on” culture.

The “Easy Button” Philosophy

As stated before, we do things to avoid pain and increase pleasure. Our current world is a relatively pain-free version of how we used to live. Everything is so readily available. We live in a world of incredible abundance and 24/7 instant gratification. You can do anything to make you feel good. You don’t really need to sacrifice to have a decent level of success.

A text from a friend? Sure.

Your favorite TV show? On deck.

Your favorite guilty indulgence/food? Hit up Doordash.

Need a validation boost from social media? A click away.

There’s nothing wrong (inherently) with any one of these, but if you want to stop procrastinating, you need to put these things in their place. It’s a lot of effort to learn how to do something or go to the gym so why not watch a movie instead?

After all, there’s always tomorrow.

At this point, you’re probably thinking there is no big deal. Sure, there’s no big deal… until tomorrow actually comes and the same shit happens over and over again. Fast forward a year later and nothing has changed.

You’re still working the same shitty job, living in the same crappy apartment, hanging out with the same loser “friends”.

All because you didn’t beat procrastination and you did that for years and years on end.

If you want to beat procrastination, you’re going to have to learn how to put the modern world in it’s place or else it will just take over. It will end up creating endless inertia.

Procrastination and the Nature of Inertia

When we talk about “beating procrastination”, the main thing we want to be concerned with is overcoming inertia. Inertia is simply a tendency for an object to stay at rest unless acted on by something other than itself. This goes for anything in your life.

Inertia when it comes to behavior is basically habits. Your habits are something you do every day for months, years, or even your entire life. Procrastination becomes a habit when it is a default mode of being for virtually everything that involves some degree of pain.

When you turn “pain” into “suffering”, you then create Resistance. As described by Steven Pressfield in The War of Art, he describes Resistance as an invisible, constrictive force that prevents you from taking any meaningful action.

Are you a writer who doesn’t write, a painter who doesn’t paint, an entrepreneur who never starts a venture? Then you know what Resistance is. – Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

Resistance works because change is hard. It’s painful. Things are “ok”, why change them? Why go through the pain?

Of course it’s easier to numb away the pain with drugs, sex, Internet, or stuffing our mouths with calories we shouldn’t be eating.

In Pressfield’s mind, he believes that Resistance is responsible for most of the evil in the world. Based on the next paragraph, I’d agree.

If tomorrow morning by some stroke of magic every dazed and benighted soul woke up with the power to take the first step towards pursuing his or her dreams, every shrink in the directory would be out of business. Prisons would stand empty. The alcohol and tobacco industries would collapse, along with the junk food, cosmetic surgery, and infotainment businesses…as would addiction, obesity, migraine headaches…”

If everyone was working hard in the direction of their dreams, there would be no time for bitching about so and so. There would just be things that would need to be done and things that get done.

Here’s how to start the process.

How to Beat the Procrastination Mindset: The 7 Methods

These methods will work, only if you work them. You need to have a serious and concerted effort to overcome laziness, Resistance, and of course – procrastination.

1. Overcome procrastination by doing your shadow work

Shadow work is the name given by Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung to the process of diving into your psyche and exploring your deeper nature.

He termed the shadow as that part of the self which is hidden from objective and subjective view, only visible with the light of awareness.

Shadow work is not a fun process – not at all. But it is necessary if you want any chance of getting to the deeper issue of why you find it hard to stop being lazy in the first place.

2. Overcome procrastination by practicing self-discipline

“..Those who will not govern themselves are condemned to find masters to govern over them.” – Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

If you cannot discipline yourself, you are fucked.

There’s no other way to put it. Self-discipline comes at the head of the list of must-haves to defeat Procrastination.

No one is perfectly self-disciplined all of the time. But if you can make it your predominant mental attitude, you’re on the right track to defeating procrastination.

If you want to learn more about self-discipline, check out How to Develop Rock Solid Self-Discipline.

When we drug ourselves to blot out our soul’s call, we are being good Americans and exemplary consumers. We’re doing exactly what TV commercials and pop culture have been brainwashing us to do from birth. Instead of applying self-knowledge, self-discipline, delayed gratification, and hard work, we simply consume a product. – Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

3. Overcome procrastination with a well-thought to-do list

A well-made to-do list will save you. Not only will you be able to write down things you have to do (in case you forget), but it will keep you on track during your day.

As a rule, it is best to do your most important tasks early in the morning – when you have more willpower.

You know, those tasks that you kept putting off and putting off until they became gigantic near-apocalyptic problems? Yeah, those ones.

The best to-do list is something that you can get done within the span of a day. Don’t put 30 tasks on there, because you’re probably only going to be able to do around 10 of them.

Organize it by priority and sequence. Priority are things that need to be done. Sequential items are tasks that can only be completed after a certain task is done. Sometimes priority and sequence fall into the same order, sometimes they don’t.

Plan accordingly.

4.Overcome procrastination by just getting started

You don’t need to be perfect to get started. “Perfectionitis” (as I like to call it) stopped me from doing many things.

You’ll never have all of the knowledge, all of the skills, all of the resources required to complete a certain objective.

Part of the reason why the self-help industry is a multi-billion dollar industry is because many people think that they need more books, more videos, more CDs before they get started.

These are all just vehicles for procrastination and Resistance.

We could always use more knowledge and skills. But you need to distinguish the difference between proactive learning and mental masturbation.

Procrastination and Resistance are usually disguised as the latter in the form of self-help material.

Start. Now.

5. Overcome procrastination by cutting yourself off

As I stated before, there are numerous things in our world which hijack your motivation and focus.

Notifications, apps, videos, muzak…endless noise. Our modern world is inherently against focus.

It’s easy to get sucked in to these things. They’re the path of least resistance. By default, they enable procrastination.

Ask yourself, what tangible artifacts have you produced within the past month? If you’re a writer, how many pieces have you written? If you’re a guitarist, how many songs have you learned recently?

To be completely honest, it’s all about production – what can you produce…what have you produced? In what volume?

You need to cut yourself off when you’re doing work, especially deep work. No mindless Internet surfing, no checking social media for “updates”, no playing with your phone.

A distraction free state will allow you to get into that “deep work” flow state that produces tangible results.

This is sort of what I and others call “monk mode“, a state of deep isolation that allows vast amounts of work to be done.

6. Overcome procrastination by minimizing friction

“Friction” is a term in management when your goals are farther away than you originally intended.

For example, a project you thought would be done in one week takes one month.

Many times friction is caused by external factors, so there’s only so much you can do.

But you can drastically reduce friction by practicing good time management and eliminating procrastination.

Make it harder for you to procrastinate by reducing as many barriers as possible for you to not do work.

Put your phone on airplane mode during the work day. Put an Internet filter on. There’s many different things you can do.

7. Overcome procrastination by pushing through the pain

In the act exercising of self-discipline, there will be a part of your psyche that dislikes conscious and purposeful exertion.

Depending on a variety of different factors (such as your socialization, your current level of self-discipline, your ability to set and achieve goals, etc.), this will be on a spectrum. For some people, they will experience a gigantic amount of pain and others just a tad.

Regardless, there will be some discomfort and pushing through discomfort is the only real way to experience real gains in life.

But you can decide to accept the pain of regret or the pain of discipline, as Jim Rohn said. The catch is, discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.

Only you can decide.

Conclusion + Wrapping Up

Procrastination and Resistance fucked me up for many years. I’m pretty sure they’ve done the same for you, too.

Procrastination and Resistance aren’t something you fight against once and it’s done. It is a battle waged day after day after day. Everything we want lie at the far side of work and inevitable procrastination.

It is a battle you can only win with self-discipline, determination, and desire. You have to ask yourself what you really want and what you’re willing to do for it.

How many more days, weeks, and years is procrastination going to steal from you?

What have been your experiences with procrastination? Let me know in the comments.