There is something which I bet most of us have experienced already, and to assure you of this I can start by giving you an example of the kind of things which I tell myself when I’m coding:
I have to finish up making these models first and then I’ll go to writing the codes for cron jobs
Yeah, I know that’s another field and you might not get it, but let me translate this for you:
I have to finish up doing this easy task first and then I’ll “probably” do this hard task that I have been running away from, for days now
Okay, I’ll be honest, I’m pretty good in dodging doing the hard tasks by doing the easy ones.
And funny enough If randomly you would have questioned me, why I haven’t done the second task, I would say: “Hey it’s on schedule already, and why are you asking me that”. I would probably defend with all my power, and it would perfectly make sense to me that there is nothing I’m running away from.
But that’s a lie, one of the many lies I have been telling myself for decades now, and yeah, they always come in different flavours, here! try these ones:
I have so many other important tasks which needs my attention, I’ll go to that one later
I have come up with a perfect schedule for this project, and on it this special task will be the final one to tackle, we need to give it all the time
We don’t have enough time for it, I’ll do it tomorrow
If all these have always been lies, so what’s the truth?
By now I think it’s obvious already:
The truth is, that task which I have been unconsciously trying cleverly to push it to another time, another day, that task IS HARD TO ME.
Yes, it’s hard, if it was easy and as it’s important to me I would have done it already.
Now this might start to sound familiar to you.
Yes, that’s procrastination, and it mostly goes in stages of me not knowing I’m avoiding doing a task and finally consciously knowing I just find myself not wanting to do it (but I want to do it), and ultimately feel terrible of myself: “why am I being like this?, it has been weeks now”
Being hard is the only reason to why I avoid doing things I set out to do, it’s the main reason why I procrastinate.
- Because I feel embarrassed in some sorts, of the failure experience I will have in not being able to do this task well
- Because I don’t want to feel pain. I want a smooth, goody, comfortable life experience in whatever I’m doing. So, anything with traces of pain in it on default I want to run away from it
The real issue.
So, with all these I have come to see procrastination as a skill issue.
We procrastinate on things we are not good at.
Things which we are not good at tends to be hard for us to do them, as a result we avoid doing them, again because it’s embarrassing experiencing failure just because you don’t know how to do something well and on top of that it’s painful doing something which is hard to you.
This is why when you have two tasks one is hard and the other one is easy (you are good at), we tend to procrastinate on the hard one by doing the easy one.
You are not good at the things you are procrastinating on, if you were, you would have done them in seconds (it’s not “biggy” and infact if it’s important to you, why wait around?)
You are bad at the thing you are procrastinating on, as you don't have appreciable skills on doing the task well.
It's hard, it's difficult, it's new to me, I'm bad at it, it has a lot of friction, that's why I avoid it(procrastinate).
I can try to give few examples which shows this view of procrastination:
- There is a chapter in math called calculus, it’s very hard, so as a result instead of reading it (and without that I will fail), I go to the 1 + 1 = 2 chapters
- I can’t keep in touch with my friends (this is every day, though I value them) as I’m not good at doing “small talks”
- I can’t do workouts everyday as I’m not good in handling the muscle pains associated with doing it
So, how can we solve procrastination?
The only way to solve your procrastination becomes for you to be good at what you are procrastinating about or simply to find tricky ways to make you do it without experiencing any kind of discomforts (if you want to avoid the responsibility of learning).
1. Become good at the thing you are procrastinating on.
I know this sounds counterintuitive, but that the only way to cure this. Infact if you will continue to be bad at doing this task it’s high likely you will continue to procrastinate on it, but once you start to know how to do it well it will reduce the likelihood of procrastinating on the same task again tomorrow, and in the future.
I stand with this firmly because if you take a close look on most things we are procrastinating on, there is always something we are not good at, there is always a skill missing. So, the only way around this requires us to learn that skill.
But unfortunately, not only the act of doing things which are hard to us is painful, even learning them has always been painful, and that’s how our brain works and there is nothing we can do about it. But I have prepared some remedies which can help us to bring comfort as we are trying to solve this procrastination issue:
- You can’t avoid the pain, so create a habit of seeing discomforts in learning as a normal thing
- There is no shame in not being good at something
- If you get good at this you won’t procrastinate on it again, so this is worth an effort
Okay, now to be good on any task I think the general principles on how you can gain mastery on anything are applied here, and by this it also means ultimately, they will involve you getting your hands dirty by touching the things you have been avoiding all this time.
Here are the tricks I have found to work:
- You can start by “procrastinating” by reading or talking with others on how you can do this task well and efficiently.
- Get down and start doing the thing, as that’s how you will get good at it and at the same time get the job done
- Do more things like this, practice doing them by repetition as much as possible until they feel as simple as drinking tea (Robert Greene said this on the only chapter I read from his heavy Mastery book)
2. Finding tricky ways to make you do things without the need to experience discomfort
If this thing is really important to me and it needs to be done, and I have discovered that it’s because it’s hard to me that’s why I have been procrastinating on it, and I don’t find anything fruitful coming from learning this thing or I just want to save time, then here are some of the things which you can do to not procrastinate on this again:
- Pay someone to do it for you or trick one to do it for you for free, though this has another version which is using any kind of automation to do the work for you, example AI
- Just don’t do the task and move on with your life instead of wasting time on things you are afraid of, because they are hard.
- If doing this task yourself is really important now and in the future, you can still do it by finding ways to reduce the pain you experience while doing it, example doing small portions of it every day (less painful but you are doing the task and ultimately you will become fluent in doing it with time) . Any other ways of making you feel better while doing a hard task also works.
One thing to note here, you are not lazy, it’s just you don’t know how to do this thing well.
Don’t lie to yourself
Finally, I think the trick now if you want to take action on procrastination is to cultivate self-awareness skills as much as possible which will help you to know when you are procrastinating what is the hard thing and what is that skill you are missing here.
One of the core features of procrastination is telling ourselves lies that seems so real to an extent of: "I get fooled by lies I made myself”
But why do we lie to ourselves when procrastinating?
It's so embarrassing to admit we can't do something because it's hard for us.
We think we are these amazing people who can do anything, so to admit our lack of skills it kills us even to think about it.
But here is the deal which might cure us from the things we are procrastinating on:
It's okay if we are not good at something,
We can learn and improve.
Instead of just roaming around with a tonne of excuses saying you'll do it later (procrastination)
We should question our ego, why is it so big to an extent we can't even admit our own weaknesses?
The next time you catch yourself avoiding a task, don’t ask “Why am I lazy?” Ask “What skill am I missing?”
Then decide will I learn it, or will I find a tricky way to do the task without pain?
#moreExposure #buildUpSkills #TryOutThings
