No.1 Procrastinate with feeling
This is going to sound strange. So just bear with me, all right?
What is a consistent and effective trick to stop procrastinating? To procrastinate less, you need to procrastinate more! All right, don’t worry, I’ll explain.
Just think about the last time you procrastinated. Did you abandon your work or did you pretend to be working when you actually weren’t? Most people don’t plan on procrastinating. When they procrastinate, they’re trying to restart their work. But distractors keep pulling them away, and this push and pull can go on for hours. In the end, nothing gets done.
Okay, let’s say you’re supposed to be doing research. You have your research open in one tab and social media open in the other. You glance back and forth, so your attention is split. You’re not really doing research but you’re not focusing on your social media either. Let’s call this fifty percent procrastinating. When you procrastinate like this, you’re making the problem worse. You’re alternating between your work and your distractors without accomplishing either one. 50% procrastination can be exhausting. you tell yourself that you’re working but you’re really not. You tell yourself that you’re procrastinating but you’re not doing that either. It’s a never-ending cycle of denial（否认）, ridicule（嘲笑） and guilt. And those emotions can drive you crazy.
So stop procrastinating with half your energy. If you want to procrastinate, go all the way, commit 100 percent to your procrastination or just don’t do it at all. If you don’t want to work, hey that’s fine, stop pretending to work, close your projects, stand up from your desk and go into another room. Completely separate yourself from your workspace. Now during this time, don’t think about your work and don’t feel guilty that you’re not working, just enjoy the time you speed away from your projects.
Right now, you’re craving（渴望） a distraction. But craving a distraction is like craving ice cream. If you’re craving something, satisfy that craving, and it will go away. When you procrastinate 100 percent, you successfully satisfy that craving. And when that happens, you start craving something else – work. Now’s the perfect time to dive back into your projects.
And when I say dive back in, I mean really dive in. Just like your procrastination, you give 100 percent of yourself to your work or you don’t work at all. Over time, your brain will create a boundary between your work and your distractors. When you separate them, something interesting happens – you waste less of your time.
100 percent procrastination actually increases your work ethic and your productivity. So how is this possible? Because the novelty of procrastination wears off（逐渐减少） faster. You’re less likely to waste time. When you’re not putting something off（推迟，延期）, distractors like social media lose their appeal（吸引力） because you’re not avoiding your work. This weird trick ultimately increases the amount of work you get done.
If you alternate between 100 percent work and 100 percent procrastination, you’re using your work time and downtime（停工期） more effectively. You feel more productive when you work. Because you chose to work. And on the flip side（另一面）, you feel more relaxed when you procrastinate because you chose to procrastinate. So don’t waste any more time pretending to work, commit one way or the other, become a better procrastinator to improve your work ethic.
No.2 Plan Around Procrastination
There are two kinds of workers: the first thrives（茁壮成长） under pressure, they need that urgency to motivate and energize them; the second panics under pressure when expectations get too high, they crumble（崩溃） under the weights. Which one describes you?
If you don’t know, just think about your work and study habits. Because the way you work also describes the way you procrastinate. Just take this situation: student A and student B are studying for a test in two weeks. Student A works better under pressure while student B panics before a deadline. Both students procrastinate until the last 24 hours before their test. But only one of these students is actually procrastinating. Is it student A or student B?
Answer: student A is not procrastinating. They’re playing to their strengths. This student is what we call an active procrastinator. This comes from a 2017 study in the journal of personality and individual differences. An active procrastinator delays their work to imporve their performance. Student A works best under pressure. So they choose to start later. On the surface, it looks like procrastination. But the quality of their work increases. Student B is a passive procrastinator. They’re ignoring their strengths by putting off their work. They should start working early because they struggle under pressure, but they choose not to, they delay their work and their productivity suffers.
So what does this mean for you? Just think about the way you work and use your strengths to your advantage. If you thrive（茁壮成长） under pressure, then procrastinate with purpose. Be an active procrastinator force, force yourself into high pressure positions and challenge yourself to succeed. If you don’t work well under pressure, then avoid high pressure situations, otherwise the pressure will impact your performance. Find pockets of time where the pressure is lowest and do your work stress-free. In other words, identify what kind of procrastinator you are, then schedule your work around your procracstination. If you procrastinate at the right times, you can be productive no matter what you’re working on.
No.3 Fail On Purpose
A big project may feel impossible. You’re standing at the starting line, but the finish line looks unbearably far away. As you stare across this massive distance, you feel discouraged. You think about giving up, and most of the time, you do. Many people procrastinate because they’re scared of the distance.
Just think about a challenging project like writing an essay. Are you afraid of writing one word? No. Are you afraid of writing one paragraph? Probably not. But writing an entire essay feels like a huge undertaking（任务）. So you hesitate, procrastinate and avoid your responsibilities. Now of course the more you avoid something, the scarier it gets. At first, your essay feels like running a mile difficult, but doable. After a week of procrastination, one mile turns into 10 miles. And after a month, the finish line feels hundreds of miles away. And you lose hope.
But there’s one weird trick you can use to stop procrastinating. This trick will help you overcome the immense distance from start to finish. So, instead of looking at the finish line, look straight at the ground. In other words, don’t think about finishing your project, don’t think about your end goal or how much works required. Going back to our example, don’t think about writing a finished essay. If you want to stop procrastinating, there’s only one thing yo need to worry about, the challenge that’s right in front of you, the first word you write, the first step you take, the first obstacle you face.
So why does this trick work? When tackling（应付） a big project, what do you usually do first? You make a plan, right? You try to solve all your problems at the beginning. Natually you feel overwhelmed（被淹没的）. You’re overwhelmed by the work, the challenges and the possibilities. Insead of jumping over one hurdle（障碍，栏架） at a time, you’re trying to overcome every hurdle at once, and that’s a recipe for disaster. Now this common practice is no different from perfectionism. You want to smooth every bump in the road before you get there, but this weird trick will change the way you think. You’re no longer planning every solution before you start, now you’re overcoming hurdles as you encounter them. And you’re solving your problems in real time. Now this trick helps with more than just（不仅仅是） procrastination, it also improves the quality of your work. Planning to some degree（在某种程度上） ensures that you’re moving in the right direction, you should plan your work before you get started. but don’t expect your plan to be foolproof（万无一失的）. No matter how much time you spend planning, you’ll never predict the future.
Alright, let’s say you’re setting goals for your career. You create a starting point and a dream destination, then you set goals to fill the space in between. But here’s the problem, you never know what opportunities will come knocking. You never know when a roadblock will ruin your plan. When these things do happen, your plan will change. You’ll have to set new goals, think of creative solutions and adapt to the situation. In other words, your plan may fall apart（崩溃） in the middle of your journey.
And hey that’s okay. So don’t worry about planning every single step, don’t worry about getting from start to finish, don’t panic about writing an entire essay or accomplishing a long-term goal. Instead, try this: form a loose plan, just stop thinking 10 steps ahead and face your first obstacle. Right now, the first problem is all that matters（最重要的事情）. As you start making progress, remind yourself that you don’t have to finish today, you don’t have to be perfect, and it’s more than okay（很ok） to fail.
In fact, some people fail on purpose. Instead of trying to be perfect, they do a terrible job, they let their work suffer, they create something they would never show to anyone. Why? Because perfection is intimidating（望而生畏的） but imperfection is not. Anyone can do a mediocre（平庸的） job so that’s all you have to do. When you create a terrible first draft, you’re overcoming the hardest part of the process, you’re no longer paralyzed（瘫痪的） at the starting line. Now you’re fighting through the middle and that’s a good feeling. So get started, be awful, create something you know is below your standards. And when you’re done, take a second pass. Maybe a third. As you fix the problems, you’ll realize something, the finish line wasn’t nearly as far as you thought.
denial n.否认 ridicule n.嘲笑 crave v.渴望 wear off 逐渐减少 put off 推迟，延期 appeal n.吸引力 downtime n.停工期 on the flip side 另一面 thrive v.茁壮成长 crumble v.崩溃 undertaking n.任务 tackle v.应付 overwhelmed adj.被淹没的 hurdle n,障碍，栏架 more than just 不仅仅是 to some degree 在某种程度上 foolproof adj.万无一失的 fall apart 崩溃 all that matters 最重要的事情 more than okay 很ok intimidating adj.望而生畏的 mediocre adj.平庸的 paralyzed adj.瘫痪的
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