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Week 3: Procrastination & Memory

This is very active time hacking. To do this, write out your plan thoughtfully.

  • Strategies for managing procrastination without spending willpower
  • Use mental tools and tricks to inspire and motivate yourself

Procrastination

  • These strategies are more important than you think
  • Understand psychology of procrastination
  • Good learning is a "brick by brick" activity
    • Procrastination is the #1 blocker

Why not use Willpower

  • Hard to come by
  • Uses lots of mental resources
  • Don't need to waste on procrastination

Why procrastination?

  • Unhappy feeling lights up pain centers of the brain..
  • Avoidance makes you feel better temporarily
  • Shares features with addiction
    • Temporary relief from reality e.g. surfing the web
  • telling yourself false stories:
    • i don't have good spacial reasoning
    • if i study too far ahead i will forget the material
    • belief that procrastination is "an innate characteristic"
  • Habit allows us to free our mind for other things
    • Zombie mode so we can focus on other things
  • Habits can be brief or long

4 Parts of a habit

Neither helpful or harmful innately.

Engineer the cue and reward. Update the belief on a plan. The routine will fall away

  1. The Cue
    • Seeing a todo list item, time to do some tasks
    • Seeing a text message from a friend, time to stop work
  2. The Routine
    • picking up your phone to read the news after waking up
    • zombie responses
  3. The Reward
    • Find a way to reward yourself for good habits
    • Find a way to remove the reward for bad habits
    • Procrastination: Moving your mind's focus to something more pleasant
      • The reward is quick and easy
  4. The Belief
    • Habits have power because of your belief in them
    • To change a habit, change your underlying belief

Build a habit: focus on process

  • To build a habit: Focus on process, not product
    • product is "outcome"
  • Easiest way is to do a pomodoro
    • Mind can march mindlessly along

Tips

  • use a quiet space or noise cancelling headphones
  • Usually you will have some negative feelings about beginning a learning session
    • Non procrastinators use "self talk" to get past the negative feelings and get started: "just get on with it"
  • Focus on process, not product: "I'm going to spend 20 minutes working"
  • Product is an outcome: "I'm going to finish my homework."

Overwriting An Old Habit

Change your reaction to a specific "cue".

The only place to apply willpower is changing your reaction to a "cue".

The Cue (4 kinds)

Action: "Recognize" what launches you into zombie procrastination mode.

  1. Location
  2. Time
  3. How you feel
  4. Reactions

The Routine

Action: "Engineer the routine". This is the reaction point where you must actively focus on rewiring your old habit.

Write a plan for the routine. It may not work perfectly. Adjust as necessary and celebrate the victories when your plan works.

  • Put your cellphone in an unreachable place
  • Use the pomodoro technique

Reward

  • Investigate what is happening.

    • Why are you procrastinating?
    • Can you substitute an emotional payoff? A feeling of pride or satisfaction?
    • Can you win a small internal bet or contest?
    • Indulge in a latte or read a favorite website
    • Watch TV or read on the web without guilt for an evening
    • Go out for a movie, buy a sweater or other frivolous purchase
    • A reward can overcome previous cravings
    • Your brain will rewire when it begins to "EXPECT THE REWARD"

  • Tips

    • Stopping at 5 PM gives a mini deadline that spurs work
      • Stopping is a nice reward and ties into focus on process
    • It takes a few days of drudgery before flow starts to take hold
    • The better you get, the

Belief

  • When the going gets stressful you long to fall into old, comforatable habits
  • Belief that your system works will get you through
  • Develop a new community
    • Virtually hang out with MOOC classmates

Juggling Life & Learning

This lecture is a bit scattered, break it out into a nice diagram or outline.

  • Once a week, write a weekly list of key tasks
  • On each day write a list you can reasonably work on or accomplish
    • Otherwise they take up space on the edge of your working memory
  • Action: Daily task list the evening before
    • This helps your diffuse mode to grapple with tasks to figure out how to accomplish them
  • Most items are process oriented
  • Only a few items are product oriented because they are very well quantified
  • Sidetracked by email
    • switch to pomodoro, a process orientation
    • 22 minute pomodoro I don't have to do the same thing every time
  • Mixing up tasks keeps things fun and prevents unhealthy bouts of sitting
  • Since I practice, I am good at gauging what I can do in a reasonable period
  • Goal finish time for the day - 5 PM
    • Planning quitting time is as important as planning working time
    • Sometimes review your major work right before you sleep, diffuse mode working
    • Maintaining healthy leisure time will improve your work
    • No matter how busy your life is, you do need a bit of break
  • Eat your frogs first in the morning
    • Action: Most disliked (and important) task, at least 1 pomodoro right when you start working

Summary: Procrastination

  • Learning is brick by brick, so procrastination stops this from happening
  • Tackling procrastination is incredibly important
  • Keep a planner journal so you easily track when you reach your goals
    • Observe what does and does not work
  • Commit to certain routines and tasks every day
    • Write your planned tasks out the night before so you can dwell on your goals
  • Arrange work into a series of small challenges
  • Make sure you and "your zombies" get lots of rewards
  • Take a few minutes to savor feelings of happiness and triumph, brain temporarily changes modes
  • Delay rewards until you finish a task
  • Try surroundings with few procrastination cues
  • Relax without guilt or worry
  • Have backup plans for when you still procrastinate, no one is perfect
  • Eat your frogs first every day