The Trouble with Procrastination

At 11:50 am, an alert pops up on my screen “Write Blog Post starting in 10 minutes”. Look at me! Setting aside 2 hours on my calendar to get a long overdue story out to you all. Best to feed myself first, I think and head to the kitchen to grab lunch. 

12:15 Finish lunch and return to my computer. Realize my keyboard isn’t connecting properly with Bluetooth. Get the spare keyboard from the other room and set it up.

12:20 Check email with the new keyboard.

12:40 Unearth a buried email and realize I haven’t texted family and friends about this weekend’s plans. Do that. 

12:55 Decide to quickly post something to Facebook. 

1:30 Still scrolling Facebook… and… um… haven’t posted anything. I look at the time. AGH! And FINALLY I start writing this Blog Post. 

Does this sound familiar to anyone else? Procrastination is a pervasive problem for me and so so many of us. This blog post offers an equation to help you understand what impacts procrastination, and six tips for how to turn it around.

STORY - More on The Trouble with Procrastination

READ MORE - Check out the hilarious Ted Talks video and a few book suggestions below

BOOK STUFF - Join us TODAY- Thursday May 29th at 4PM PST as we discuss A Sense of Place with author Michael Shapiro

GOING FURTHER - Looking for Thought Partnership? I have spots opening in July!

STORY: The Trouble with Procrastination

In January, I set myself the goal of rewriting Chapter 5 of my book. It took me until May 23 to pull together a crappy first draft. Five whole months of delay, distraction, evasion. My husband loves when I’m procrastinating because that’s when fresh homemade sourdough gets baked and the kitchen gets spotless.

So what is procrastination? What is happening in our brains? And most importantly, what can we do when it strikes?

The Equation that Explains Procrastination

According to the definitive review paper by Piers Steel (with an astounding 6,364 citations!) procrastination is when we delay starting or completing an intended task, knowing full well that you’ll be worse off in the long run. 

Procrastination hinges on the timing of rewards and punishments. When rewards are far off, when the task at hand is unpleasant, or when there’s no one breathing down your neck, then it’s easy to procrastinate. Psychologists Piers Steel and Cornelius J. König developed a theory called the Temporal Motivation Theory that offers a handy dandy equation to model and predict procrastination behavior. 

                Expectancy x Value

Utility = —----------------------------

              1 + Delay x Sensitivity

Utility is how desirable the task is and thus, how likely you are to do it.

Expectancy is the probability of success.

Value means how appealing and rewarding the outcome will be (or how disastrous the consequences if it’s not done).

Delay is how far away in time the rewards will arrive.

Sensitivity is how sensitive any given person is to delayed gratification.

I love this equation because it helps really understand how the timing of rewards and punishments impact procrastination. Take the classic example of studying for a final exam rather than socializing and goofing off.

Take Expectancy. When you expect to succeed on the exam (high Expectancy), then you’re likely to do it. But if you’re afraid you might fail no matter how hard you study (low Expectancy), then you’re more likely to procrastinate. 

Take Value. You’ll study more when the exam is worth half your grade (high Value) than if it’s worth only 10% (low Value). You’ll study more when you love the class and the teacher than if it’s the worst class ever taught by a narcissistic bully. You’ll also study more if the act of studying is fun (say your best friends are studying together tonight and one of them promised home made chocolate chip cookies), while procrastination itself is unpleasant (such as finding out that the bitchy mean girl will be at the party you were thinking about going to).

Or take Delay. If the test is tomorrow (low Delay), then you’re much more motivated to study, but if the final is month’s away (high Delay), then you’re more likely to socialize. When you press the panic button and suddenly procrastination dissipates. 

Finally, take Sensitivity. For anyone who has ever been around a toddler, you know that they are really impulsive. With a two second attention span, it’s really hard for a toddler to ignore a reward right now for the promise of a bigger reward later. We as adults become more impulsive and toddler-like under certain conditions (high Sensitivity): when we’re stressed, tired, low self-esteem, bored, distractable, lonely, unclear on our goals, told what to do by others, and/or disorganized. I’ve fallen into high Sensitivity periods on and off throughout my life. We all do. There’s a lot less procrastination when we cultivate the opposite (low Sensitivity): relaxed, rested, confident, grounded, focused, well-supported, clear on our goals, in control of our own destiny, and organized.

In the case of writing this blog post, I think my biggest issues were Value and Delay. I’m never quite sure how any given blog post will land. Will it be of Value to others? Will I find Value for myself in the writing? And I’ve already gone over a month since my last missive to you all. I didn’t have a hard deadline for these posts. There’s nobody breathing down my neck. The value for Delay in the equation is undefined at best, infinite at the worst.

For my manuscript, the problems are all about Expectancy and Sensitivity. I battled some mighty impostor demons on this one and have been quite afraid of failure (see my last blog post), so Expectancy was low. Add to that being in a high Sensitivity period: stressed, anxious, unclear on my goals, and disorganized. This was not a recipe for success.

NOTE... After I published this post, my brilliant friend, David Brenneis, who worked as a straegic consultant for Fortune 500 companies, had this to add:

I can seldom add anything to your posts, but the equation is usually a little different. People have a strong present bias, which acts only right now. So the “discount factor” for the first time step is higher than for any step thereafter. Rubin coined the (beta, delta) time utility curve, where beta is the first discount, less than 1, but greater than delta. And delta is the discount for any step after that. That’s why we really hate to do things now, and think we will do it shortly thereafter, but we do not. When we take one step forward in time, beta becomes the discount factor for the next time step, and delta applies thereafter.

This model generally explains why we don’t do it now, and why we don’t do it later (our present bias kicks in at every future time step).

The addition of a commitment device is another way to make sure we do things now rather than put them off. For example, if I don’t bike 100 miles this week, I have committed to Jason and Bob that I will eat five green olives. I really really hate green olives, and don’t think I’ve had one in 20 years. That’s why I’m going on a bike ride in 30 minutes!

David is way smarter than I am so I had to look this up. He's referring to the Rubin Time Utility Curve from behavioral economics, introduced by David Laibson in 1997. It's a different model than what I was referring to but offers a more focused way to look at procrastination.

Mathematically, it says that the utility at time t is given by:

Where:

• t is time (with t=0 being "now"),

• β is the present-bias parameter (accounting for the discounting of future rewards relative to what's happening now),

• δ is the standard discount factor (reflecting how future utility decays over time).

Rubin's model cleanly explains how much we discount future rewards. Piers Steel's Temporal Motivation Theory explains why we do that by taking both time and psychological factors like how likely you are to succeed, how rewarding the outcome is to you, and how sensitive you are to delays into account.

Thanks David for adding to this post!!!

How to Turn Procrastination Around

Knowing the theory and equations isn’t enough. Clearly. I needed help, some serious habit change, and system restructuring to overcome my own procrastination. Here’s what I did organized into six tips for you. 

1. Get support. The very most important thing I needed to do was to enlist the help of others. Not only is it more fun to do things with friends, but it makes me more resilient to the inevitable ups and downs. I called up the amazing Tiffany Hawk, a book coach and writing friend. I also called my friend Trevor Timbeck, systems leadership expert and author of The Power of Systems. Finally, I have the full throated support of all the heroines from our recent retreat. Collectively, this powerhouse team helped me get out of my own way, move through my tangled emotions, and make a plan to start moving forward again. Social support increases the reward and lowers my toddler-like impulsivity.

2. Do it when energy is high. I set myself up to write first thing in the morning. It’s oh so much harder to avoid procrastination when I’m tired at the end of the day. Other people have different daily rhythms with peak energy midday or as night owls. Whatever your rhythm, set yourself up for success by scheduling your time on task when energy is high.

3. Break big goals into small steps. I negotiated a daily writing goal with Tiffany. One paragraph of at least 100 words minimum five days a week. It’s easy to fail at big, hairy, audacious goals like “finish the manuscript”. But if you break the big thing into small, readily achievable steps, the likelihood of success rises dramatically. Plus, each tiny success boosts my own confidence and reinforces the idea that, Hey, I can do this.

4. Attach your small steps to small immediate rewards. And then Tiffany did another genius thing – she offered to mail me a prize at the end of May if I can meet my daily writing goal every day for the whole month. Plus, the prize is a surprise! I love surprises! She’s even been emailing me back every day when I email her with an update on my daily writing. 

5. Establish a hard deadline with outside accountability. Finally, I promised to pay Tiffany $400 if I didn’t finish the rewrite of Chapter 5 by May 23rd. Without that deadline, the Delay part of the equation was undefined and nearly infinite. Now I knew exactly what I had to do by when, and believe me, in the last week, my productivity tripled.  

6. Reduce distractions. I found the coolest app for my phone and computer. It’s called Screen Zen. On my phone, I’ve limited myself to no more than three 10-minute uses of social media or news apps per day. On my computer, I’ve set it up so that I can't access anything but the most essential work or writing apps and websites until 9 am, that way I start my day with the most important things (not email). If I do try to open a limited app, it asks me "Is this important?" and forces me to box breathe before I can use it. It's working! I'm on a 25 day streak and feeling so much more centered and grounded, not to mention less anxious because of so much less doomscrolling. (And no, they aren’t paying me for my endorsement.)

All of these things helps change the equation on my writing. Whatever your big project might be, hopefully they’ll help you get through it. 

In conclusion, my husband would like to add that he doesn’t think that I am qualified to write this blog post. A true procrastinator would never get it done. He should know. It took him two years to hire a director for the nonprofit where he’s been the Board Chair and de facto man in charge since the last director left. He said he ought to write it, but then, it’d never get written. So you get me instead.

READ MORE

If you want to get inside the mind of a procrastinator, I highly recommend the hilarious TED talk by Ted Urban. And for science and practical tips for procrastination, this is a great TED-Ed video.

More generally, I highly recommend the book Atomic Habits by James Clear, Reset by Dan Heath, and of course, The Power of Systems by my friend Trevor Timbeck and Steve Chandler. Bring to mind someone you consider to be an exceptional mentor. It may be easy to describe their character or personality (e.g. supportive, kind, thoughtful, wise, empathetic, encouraging…), but what are they actually doing? What behaviors, attitudes, and words do they use, and more importantly, can I learn those skills? 

BOOK STUFF

I am excited to remind you that today, Thursday, May 29th at 4PM PST, we will be having our book club call featuring the talented travel writer and my good friend, Michael Shapiro. This is a fantastic opportunity to engage with Michael, discuss his insights on travel writing, and explore the themes of A Sense of Place, our May/June book. Whether you're a seasoned traveler or someone who enjoys the art of storytelling, this session promises to be enlightening and inspiring. Don't miss out on the chance to ask your burning questions and gain a deeper understanding, whether your reading along or not! If you are not yet registered to join in today's 4pm zoom call do that HERE!

GOING FURTHER

I am filled with appreciation for the journey shared with graduating clients. Their growth and accomplishments inspire me, and I am grateful for the opportunity to have played a part in their stories. With these graduations, I now have openings for new clients, if you are looking for a supportive thought partner to guide you, this is a perfect moment to step forward!

As your leadership coach, my commitment is to provide personalized coaching that resonates with your individual needs and aspirations. Here’s what you can look forward to when we collaborate:

• Empowerment throughout your leadership journey

• Tailored strategies designed specifically for you

• Encouragement of both personal and professional growth

  
  

  Spots opening in July. Contact me if interested!