So how do you stop procrastinating and get the job done? In other words how do
you get the motivation the fuel to get to your outcomes well you picked the right
video because I'm gonna answer that question with the help of science
so to begin with what is procrastination because a lot of people think it's just
delaying things but we know that it's a lot more than that
so the definition of procrastination a voluntary delay of an intended important
task despite knowing you'll be worse off for doing so the key ingredient is that
it has to be something you intended to do so it's not something someone's
making you do that you don't want to do the delay has to be unnecessary
so not putting one task aside for a more important one and you know that by
putting the task off there will be harm either to yourself or someone else now
if you really want to stop procrastinating you first need to fully
understand it and by fully understanding it I mean you need to understand the
psychology behind it so firstly hands up if you think you procrastinate yeah we
all do it and when it's in moderation it's not such a bad thing but when it
becomes chronic then it can become quite problematic we often think that
procrastinating is due to poor time management and being lazy and we can
often look at procrastinators and think just get on with it but a lot of it has
to do with people's emotional states and how they manage their negative emotions
so one way to look at procrastination is poor mood management so you use a
procrastination as a way to regulate those negative feelings now let's say
that you have a task to write an assignment and it's boring it's
stressful it's challenging and it's bringing out the sense of incompetence
fear of failure that you won't get it right and we all have this dynamic
between the tasks that may be unpleasant and all the feelings that you have
inside of you so then what happens well we first struggle a little and delay the
task then we think right I got to get on with this task and we think what's going
to come from this the benefits what are you going to learn about yourself and
then you get on with the task but here's the thing if you're a chronic
procrastinator you don't know how to manage those negative feelings so what
do you do you take that task you take that assignment what you do you put it
over there and then you feel much better all of a sudden and then in your
internal dialogue you rationalize that decision because you think to yourself I
feel much better now and you know what I'll move it aside I'm going to do it
next week I'm really tired this week I'll feel much better next week and
I'll do an even better job next week but here's the problem by doing this we're
thinking of our future self as a superhero someone who is much more
capable with psychologically distancing ourselves from that person becoming
unreal becoming unattainable and eventually no longer identifying with it
anymore so now that we've understood the psychology of procrastination we can now
use this knowledge to work through the tips on avoiding it so tip number one
the most easiest thing that anyone can do is minimizing the effort required to
do a task so let's say that you want to go to the gym more you need to make it
easier for yourself so for this example you would prepare your bag your gym bag
the night before so the night before you get your gym bag prepared and that way
you have less excuses not to go so when you come back from working you're tired
you have one less excuse not to go to the gym or when you wake up in the
morning and you don't have time and you're in a rush you have one less
excuse not to go to the gym because that gym bag is already prepared so you're
minimizing the effort required to do the tasks and this can be applied to
anything tip number two it's all about managing those negative emotions that we
spoke about earlier so what you need to do is find something positive in the
task and get used to doing this research is actually shown this has a very good
impact just after two weeks of starting yet so let's give an example let's say I
have to do a task on a certain medication and it's not the most
interesting medication to me but what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna see the
positive in it I'm gonna see the positive that one day I could help a
patient with that medication one day I could help another healthcare
professional with that medication so I'm reaping the reward because it's making
me more competent and better at my job tip number three don't be too strict on
yourself some research has actually shown that this is one of the worst
things you can do from fascinating so have compassion have forgiveness for
yourself don't be too hard on yourself because all that's going to do is add to
those negative emotions that we spoke about earlier just think of a friend of
yours would you really get on their case and
be strict on them or would you support them and give them positive emotions so
be like that to yourself and reduce those negative emotions now moving on to
tip number four which is a very important one it's all about using the
language to shorten the distance between a behavior and just living your life
take me for example I call myself a runner but I'm like the
best runner no am i a professional runner no am I a professional athlete no but
when I tell people I run I'm just living my life I don't tell them oh I like to
run or I like to exercise I just say yeah I'm a runner and this can apply to
anything in life so you're using the correct language to shorten the distance
between living your life and just the behavior so just think about that for a
few minutes there are also health effects which are associated with
chronic procrastination which I don't think many people speak about and I
think it's quite important that we make more people aware of so firstly we know
that procrastinators tend to stress a lot more and the reason for this is that
they're constantly putting tasks aside but they're not getting them done so it
stays in the back of their mind which we spoke about earlier and it's constantly
increasing their stress levels now the research has shown that this stress
isn't good for us it has negative effects on our immune system it has
negative effects on illnesses that we may have and procrastinating on a wide
number of tasks also usually means that you'll be procrastinating on exercise on
eating healthy now let's think for a second you're a patient who's just been
diagnosed with diabetes or heart disease and they've been told to make these
changes to their diet to their exercising now imagine if they're not
and so I really hope this video helps you you now know the psychology behind
procrastinating and you know all about the negative emotions that cause
it and how to try and reduce them thank you for watching if you have any of your
own tips please leave a comment below because I'd love to read it and I'm sure
everyone watching this video would to - always remember that you're awesome and
I will see you next week I just thought of it now Nads I was like
oh yeah it would be quite cool to throw a bit of paper and by the way that was scrap
paper which I'm going to be recycling just to let you all know it was a paper
that I used to write some notes on but I'll be recycling it I mean the lines are
coming today but it's a slow day it's a slow burner day okay just so you all
know that Abraham the pharmacist always recycles you're awesome hey guys thanks
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