- [Matt] No matter how driven you are,
you likely struggle with procrastination.
And I'm guessing, as you've transitioned
to working from home,
the situation hasn't improved much.
When it comes to putting off our work,
let's just say it's a constant battle.
(overlapping chatter)
- Help me, help me, help me!
Oh no!
- Matt, no!
- So close. (laughs)
As Steven Pressfield writes in The War of Art,
procrastination is the most common
manifestation of resistance
because it's the easiest to rationalize.
We don't tell ourselves,
I'm never going to write my symphony.
Instead we say, I'm going to write my symphony;
I'm just going to start tomorrow.
Now think about what you're going through
when you promise yourself
that you'll do something tomorrow.
All the sudden, in that moment,
all that pressure, the anxiety and the stress
is alleviated.
We feel almost productive in an odd way.
We feel like we're actually making progress
when we're not.
We convince ourselves, through all these excuses like,
tomorrow I'm gonna have more energy,
tomorrow I'll feel more inspired.
But the problem there is that tomorrow never comes
because tomorrow we don't feel inspired,
we don't have more energy,
and so we continue to push it off
until the pain becomes so great
that we can't not do that thing.
The deadline has arrived, and we have to get to work.
Or else we'll face the consequences
from our boss, the IRS, or a significant other.
- [Nat] Hey, did you get a chance to cancel those flights?
- Oh, my laptop broke actually.
- Isn't that your computer?
(laptop crashes)
- What we need to do couldn't be simpler.
Sit down and get to work.
And yet, in practice, it's not so easy.
And so in my years of working for myself
as a freelancer and as an independent content creator,
mostly working from home,
I've learned a whole lot
about how to avoid procrastination.
And I've realized that one big difference that I've made
is including an almost daily practice,
a daily ritual that takes about 15 minutes.
This 15 minute ritual includes five things that,
not only help me to kickstart my day,
but also to stay focused for much longer periods of time.
But first, this video is brought to you by Skillshare
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- [Matt] Get this class and tons of others on productivity,
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My daily ritual to avoid procrastination begins with,
you might've guessed, coffee.
You've seen me make coffee in so many videos by now,
it's become cliche,
but it's an important trigger
that helps me get my day started.
So the important of this ritual became
pretty obvious to me when I quit caffeine for 30 days.
It wasn't the caffeine itself that I missed the most.
My headaches largely went away in the first
five or six days.
But it was that daily ritual of making a cup of coffee.
It was almost a Pavlovian response.
When I had that cup and I sat down next to my laptop,
I all of a sudden felt this surge of
inspiration and motivation.
It was the repetition, doing it every single day,
grabbing my coffee, getting to work,
grabbing my coffee, getting to work.
By the way, if you're looking for good coffee,
I get my beans delivered biweekly from
a local California company called Cat and Cloud.
If you remember, one of the owners of the company,
Chris Baca, he's the guy that quit caffeine with me
for that experiment.
- [Chris] Matt, thank you for ruining the past month of my life.
- [Matt] One thing that I've started to reintroduce
into my daily routine is a hand-written to-do list.
Before I ever started this YouTube channel,
I was a freelance filmmaker,
and during that time, I relied largely on
hand-written to-do lists to organize
all of my tasks and all of my projects.
And for some reason, over the past couple years,
I've lost touch with that.
And I think maybe it was something about now
working completely and living completely from home,
never getting out of the house.
I needed something tactical,
something that I could literally physically write down
to keep track of the most important things.
And I find that, as opposed to a digital system,
I'm much more clear on the one to three things
that are most important.
So this is what the coming week has in store for me.
Monday, edit procrastination video.
That's the video that you're watching.
Tuesday, write YouTube course.
Wednesday, film social content and take new photos.
Thursday, plan next week's video.
Friday, film next week's video.
So now when I sit down each morning,
for the rest of the week,
I can identify the one to three things
that are most important.
Not the five to 15 things that I need to do during the day.
Because chances are, if those small things
don't get addressed, don't get touched,
then it's not the end of the world.
But if I don't get those one to three things done,
then it'll likely really stilt my progress going forward.
I also really like to lay out my week
to see what's happening,
and how much progress I can get by Friday.
Because sometimes if we're just looking at today,
it can be, I guess for somebody like myself,
who's a little bit impatient,
it can get kind of frustrating.
But when you can see that whole progress
that you're able to achieve if you stay on task today.
That motivates and inspires me because
I don't wanna continue to push things
until the next week and the next week.
Now I still use the app TeuxDeux do as a digital version
of my to-do list.
But lately it's mostly a place to collect things
that I need to do, but aren't a top priority.
Like shooting some B-roll for a friend's YouTube channel,
calling my accountant to get an update on my taxes,
or reminders for ideas I like to include in my course.
The next thing that's essential for me
to avoid procrastination is to find solitude.
Peace, quiet, and no other humans,
which, in a way is easier now that
we're all locked in at home.
And in another way, it's just as difficult.
Some people seem to thrive in chaos,
they don't get disturbed by a messy desk,
harsh lighting, or a penguin dancing next to your workspace.
That's not the case for me.
Whether I'm in a room alone, or ideally, home alone,
I find that the stillness motivates me into action,
and it's far less likely that I'll stop
once I get into the state of flow.
Now, solitude is not always possible,
especially at times like these when we're locked inside
with our roommates, our spouse, or our kids.
And so we have to get a little bit more creative
to find that same kind of solitude.
And one thing that really helps me
is to put on a pair of noise canceling headphones.
By the way, if you're keeping track,
this is thing number four.
Most days when I sit down to begin my work,
I'll put on my noise canceling headphones
and play from one of two Spotify playlists:
deep focus or Lo-fi beats.
I can't listen to anything with vocals because
it's nearly impossible for me to focus.
But having some kind of instrumental track in the background
acts to lock me into my work.
I'm sure people that work in an office environment
know how powerful it is to have over-ear headphones.
It's the universal sign for get fucked.
It is incredibly helpful for
letting people know that you're locked into work,
and you do not want to be disturbed.
I've heard of other people doing things like
placing flags next to their desk
when they are really locked in
and trying to get some deep work done.
I personally have conversations with Natalie,
we talk about, when we're wearing headphones,
that's a do not disturb sign.
The added benefit of the music,
the noise cancellation, the over ear headphones,
it's just one way that I'm able to find solitude
when there maybe isn't solitude to be found anywhere.
And the last thing that really helps me
is to remove as many other distractions
as I possibly can.
There are some measures that I take
before I even start working,
like having the freedom app installed
that blocks websites that I designate.
Lately I've blocked popular news sites I go to,
as well as Reddit.
Just that barrier, just that little bit of like,
don't do it.
It just prevents that instant flinch
to wanna check those sites.
And it helps me to get back to work.
It doesn't always work.
There are lots and lots of times where I'm like,
you know, I just wanna hit little hit,
I just wanna see what's going on with the news today.
But then I find that, even if it works
40 or 50% of the time, that's enough
to avoid that procrastination and to get to work.
And on my phone, I delete social apps
like Instagram and Tik Tok.
I usually keep these apps on my phone
a couple days a week.
But if they happen to be on my phone
and I can sense the distraction coming in,
I'll simply delete them.
And those are the five things that help me
avoid procrastination and stay focused on my work.
The important thing about this ritual
is that it takes me less than 15 minutes to complete.
And once I've done it, I find that I'm much more locked in
and much more productive.
There's probably nothing magical
about the combination of these activities
besides maybe the caffeine.
But it does help me to build some momentum
towards the work that I need to do each day.
Thank you to Skillshare for sponsoring this video,
and thank you so much for tuning in
and watching these videos every week.
Hey guys, by the way, I cut my own hair.
What do you think?
Like, serious feedback in the comments.
I think I did a pretty damn good job.
The back is kinda fucked up.
The back, I don't know if you can see that,
I don't know if that's in focus,
but I kinda fucked up the back a little bit.
But you know, eh, I think it's pretty good, ya know?
Nobody has to see the back of my head.
Just from now on out,
you're never gonna see the back of my head in a video.
K, bye.