Earn More Time with Creative Procrastination
Wednesday, August 25, 2010 at 12:36PM
Many of us are highly skilled procrastinators. We trick ourselves into putting off work by thinking that we really need to read that magazine again or spend more time "Twittering it up all over the place". Believe me, I know what I'm talking about. The sad thing is, we end up shooting ourselves in the foot. You wasted another hour while the real work still needs to be done and you didn't gain anything except reinforcing a bad habit.
As endurance athletes, we need all the spare time we can get. So, if you're a great procrastinator, here's a cool trick: Procrastinate against the things that waste time.
Huh? How does this work? Is quite easy, actually. First, let's acknowledge that you are indeed smarter than some "trick". But then, realize that sometimes we can use the smarter parts of our brains to "trick" the dumber parts (the parts more on autopilot) to do what we need. Example - You don't want to forget your ID on your next bike ride, so you put it on the seat of your bike the night before so you can't leave without it. Many people play these kinds of tricks on themselves all the time. I put stuff by my front door so I can't leave without it the next day, sometimes directly in the path of the door so I physically can't open the door without picking it up to take it with me.
If you change your view on things a little, it's very easy to see that getting Project A done now gives you more time to with Playtime B. I was talking with a friend just last night and he calculated that biking to work actually gave him more time to be with his family even though it did take a little longer than driving his car. It counted as workout time, time he no longer needed to do on weekends or in the evenings. Smart view!
Ok, so now that we understand that it is a time-saver to get the important things done first, now what? The final step is to swap that sweet feeling of putting things off from one type of work to another. It's important to remember that all work is work, you body and mind doesn't really know the difference. That's why when you do something that you were putting off, you wonder why you were putting it off in the first place because it wasn't all that hard anyway.
Here's how you do it: When you are choosing between two tasks and one is surfing the internet and the other is writing that TPS report for the boss, literally say out loud, "I'm gonna put that surfing off 'til later." in your best Matthew McConaughey procrastinator voice. It works and it starts building a really cool habit of procrastinating against stuff that is eating up your training and with-family time.
In the end, we are our habits.
Give it a try and enjoy!
Reader Comments (2)
Love the Office Space reference.. now back to minesweeper.. opps I mean work.
And what am I doing reading this handy article on procrastinating?...you got it