How to Stop Procrastinating
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How to Stop Procrastinating
In 1789, philosopher Jeremy Bentham mused on the two forces that control our lives:
"Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure."
His argument, in simple terms, is that human behavior is driven by the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain.
This general idea is the basis for the most useful productivity framework you've probably never heard of:
It's called Skinner's Law.
The law is named after behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner, who was a pioneer in the study of how rewards and punishments shape human behavior.
Skinner's Law says that to get yourself to do something, you need to either:
Make the pain of not doing it greater than the pain of doing it, or
Make the pleasure of doing it greater than the pleasure of not doing it
It's a very simple way of hacking your motivation when you find yourself procrastinating on or avoiding something important.
When I was writing my book, I kept saying it was my top priority, but weeks would pass without meaningful progress.
Why? Ultimately, it was because of a pleasure-pain mismatch. Given how far out the deadline was, it was much easier (higher pleasure, lower pain) to skip writing on any given day than to sit down and force myself to wage war with the blank page.
So, I applied Skinner's Law:
I made a rule that I wasn't allowed to have breakfast until I wrote 500 words. I wrote it down and put it on my desk.
Suddenly, the pain of not doing it (hunger) was greater than the pain of doing it (wrestling with the words).
Some days the 500 words came easy. Others not so much. But as I engaged in the behavior consistently, it all started to flow. Two years later, a few hundred words a day resulted in a book (which has now sold 300,000+ copies around the world).
Small things become big things...
There are some simple ways we can all adapt and use Skinner's Law to create movement on our big, scary projects:
Make a public declaration of your intention. If you publicly state that you are going to do [X] each day, you've manipulated both pain and pleasure. It will be painful to renege on your word, and pleasurable to tell people you stuck to it.
Tie a reward to completing the daily action. Give yourself a reward after completing the desired action. It could be your favorite coffee, a leisurely walk, a relaxing bath, whatever. Remember the feeling of the reward so that you can use it to get started.
Plan a working session with a friend. If your work is tied to another person, you won't want the pain of letting them down.
Make a friendly bet. I had a few friends engage in a body fat loss competition recently. While only one person won, they all improved their physical condition. The desire to win (and avoid the pain of the loser's punishment) was significant in motivating action.
Tie a punishment to failing to complete the daily action. My example of not eating breakfast until I finished the morning pages falls into this category. Note that this isn't for most people, but I tend to respond well to the negative (I know this about myself from my athletic days).
Skinner's Law is a core tool in your fight against someday.
Someday I'll write that book. Someday I'll start that business. Someday I'll find that partner. Someday I'll take that leap of faith.
Stop saying someday. Someday is the enemy.
Make someday today. Do the thing.
