Tomorrow
Homo-soul (Human beings) have been procrastinating for centuries. The problem is so timeless that ancient Greek philosophers like Socrates and Aristotle developed a word to describe this type of behavior: Akrasia
Akrasia is the state of acting against your better judgment. It is when you do one thing even though you know you should do something else. In our words, akrasia is procrastination or a lack of self-control or delaying a task.
What do you mean by "Let's do it tomorrow!"?
To know more about this word we will go on a tour that starts from the Behavioral psychology research department.
Their research has revealed a phenomenon called “time inconsistency,” which helps in explaining why procrastination seems to pull us down despite our good intentions. Time inconsistency refers to the tendency of the human brain to value immediate rewards more highly than future rewards like in the temple run.
For a while taking an example, many young people know that saving for retirement in their 20s and 30s is crucial, but the benefit of doing so is decades off. It is far easier for the Present Self to see the value in buying a new pair of shoes than in stocking away ₹7000 for a 70-year-old you! Hence, buying a pair of shoes is easy today without their need but what about tomorrow?
However, while the Future Self can set goals, only the Present Self can take action, this is exactly the cause for procrastination. Elucidating the above, your present actions serve as a foundation for your future goals.
The guilt, shame, and anxiety that you feel while procrastinating are usually worse than the effort and energy you have to put, regardless of what you're working on. The problem is not doing the work, it’s starting the work-like your motorcycle having a hard time starting.
To steer clear of procrastination is to make your future goals with rewards to the present moment.
One of the best ways to bring future rewards into the present moment is with a strategy known as temptation bundling.
Temptation bundling is one way to apply a psychology theory known as Premack’s Principle. Named after the work of Professor David Premack, the principle states that “more probable behaviors will reinforce less probable behaviors.” In other words, even if you don’t want to process overdue assignments you will become conditioned to do it if it means you get to do something you want to do along the way.
So, you find more attraction towards work only while doing your favorite things at the same time.
To understand better, make your handsome work that creates two columns on a piece of paper.
In column one, write down the pleasures you enjoy and the temptations that you want to do.
In column two, write down the tasks and behaviors you should be doing, but often procrastinate on.
Now arrange your work along with the pleasure you fancy.
The second most important is if you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do. Less time is more effective. Your brain is more clever than you ever imagine!
The third is to make your task more achievable -for good effort, there lies a good outcome. That means even if you are given a book of 800 pages to finish in a couple of weeks, you should not back off!
Making your tasks more achievable is important for two reasons.
Small measures of progress help to maintain momentum over the long run, which means you’re more likely to finish large tasks.
The faster you complete a productive task, the more quickly your day develops an attitude of productivity and effectiveness.
Ivy Lee Method
One of the best productivity systems and one of the most simple. It’s called The Ivy Lee Method and it has six steps:
At the end of each workday, write down the six most important things you need to accomplish tomorrow. Do not write down more than six tasks.
Prioritize those six items in order of their true importance.
When you arrive tomorrow, concentrate only on the first task. Work until the first task is finished before moving on to the second task.
Approach the rest of your list in the same fashion. At the end of the day, move any unfinished items to a new list of six tasks for the following day.
Repeat this process every working day.
If you commit to nothing, you’ll be distracted by everything. Nowadays multitasking seems to be great but not, that means you just want yourself to be a busy person.
So last but not least “Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.”-Thomas Carlyle.
