1. My experience with procrastination

As a developer, I struggled heavily with procrastination. I would usually run away from those complex programming tasks and attend to smaller ones. The large nature of the task and my lack of knowledge on the topic were points I will put forward to excuse myself.

Little did I know I was killing myself by not trying. As time passed, I realized that my skills were not up-to-date. Reality struck me when I needed a new job for financial reasons, and I could not apply due to my outdated skills. 

All those tasks in the past that, if I had completed them, could have helped me sharpen my skills, just came to me, increasing my disgruntlement with myself. 

Procrastination is a disease, a killer. It hurts you from deep within. You escape the important task and go for a non-important one. You pretend to be busy, but meanwhile, you know you are not being productive.

As a procrastinator, you jump from one task to another, leaving all of them uncompleted. In the end, you’ve done nothing.

A procrastinator will follow his emotions blindly, being afraid to “suffer” the initial pain of a task he has no clue about or that for which he has a negative previous experience.

2. Why do we procrastinate?

As James clear, brilliantly explains, Researchers have found what we can call the« time inconsistency paradox ». What is this? Actually, it puts forward the fact that there is some fight between your present self and your future self. While your future self sets goals and sees life in the long-term view, your present self wants immediate rewards.

Let’s take an example to really understand this. Why your future self plans to publish an innovative app, your present self wants to look at the latest published episode of a movie. This creates some friction and when it is decision-making time, since we live in the present, you will likely procrastinate the future plan for the gratification now.

Though you plan for the future, you have to execute in the present, in the now.  This is where you decide to procrastinate or not.

Put it another way, when you can’t clearly see the reward for doing a task now, there are more chances that you procrastinate it. The question becomes, how can we use this issue of instant gratification to our advantage? Read the article to the end for some answers.

I believe there are 2 other core reasons we procrastinate:

Fear of failure: Yeah, that one should be typical for the majority of us. It generally stems from previous experience. If, in the past, you tried doing a task and failed, then procrastinating its execution, becomes a natural tendency. This is because, emotionally, we don’t want to continue to feel stupid and ashamed of ourselves. We fear these emotions and no longer want to deal with the pain the task initially brought us.

Feeling overwhelmed: the complexity associated with the task, generally due to some prejudgment, can make us procrastinate. We believe it has multiple unknowns, which in turn will require much effort to comprehend and tackle. 

Thus, as we love staying in our comfort zone and doing what we know most, we procrastinate on tasks for which we have little skill and believe are complex.

To these 3 reasons, let me add one more, which is a real killer nowadays.

Distractions: the distractions from our phones, social media, and videos are becoming far more important. We look at a notification, open WhatsApp, then see that a good friend has written to us. We reply to him, and the conversation starts. In the end, we have consumed 30 minutes.  

Likewise, we open YouTube to see some useful tutorials. However, on the homepage, we are presented with all these recommended videos, which are really appealing to us. We end up watching one of these, telling ourselves that we will come back very soon to our tutorial. Sadly, after some time, we have lost our focus, and we procrastinate

3. Curing procrastination

Drug #1: the 25-minute rule

I cured procrastination using the 25-minute rule, technically called the pomodoro technique after its inventor. This technique has been a game-changer for me. Not only has it helped me to become productive but it has also helped me to embrace new challenges for which I initially thought I was not fit.

Writing this article is just one of those new challenges. I never considered myself to be someone with good English or writing skills until the pomodoro technique forced me to do so.

This method is simple: you set your timer for 25 minutes, and you do your task until the timer rings. Yes, that is all. Why only 25 minutes? Because your brain can concentrate enough for this period. When it is focused, you are highly productive, as your brainpower is mobilized to its optimum.

After 25 minutes, your brain needs some relaxation. Hence, pomodoro is accompanied by a 5-minute break after each concentration session. Relaxation is also an important part of the learning process. Always reward yourself with fun for 5 minutes.

Focus on progress, not completion

Focus on the task’s progress, not its completion. This is the key to pomodoro efficiency. One major reason we procrastinate is that we see a task as huge and feel overwhelmed by it, thinking that it will take a lot of time and effort to be completed.

Virtually, this may be true, but once you sit concretely on the task, you easily realize that what you conceived in your brain as tedious and complex can be broken down into smaller and more manageable bits. 

Pomodoro helps you sit down on the task. You don’t say to yourself, I have to complete this task today; rather, I have to make some progress, which is equivalent to the 25 minutes time span you assigned to it. 

When you say I have to complete this task today, if faced with a difficult item that blocks you, at the end of the day, you become frustrated. Frustration leads to pain and the feeling of being stupid. 

Emotionally, your brain registers this as a negative feeling, and the next time you want to come to the task, there will be some great inertia, which ultimately ends in you procrastinating it

Meanwhile, by using the pomodoro technique, even if you are faced with a difficult item, you will tell yourself, let me just give it 25 minutes just so I can make some progress. I bet you that even if the problem is not solved, you will discover a mind-blowing glue. 

Remember, development is the accumulation of small steps, which is what pomodoro promotes.

A small trick I use when not motivated

When I am bored or don’t want to do a tedious task, I will set my 25minute timer. Generally, for the first two minutes, I will be just staring at the task to be done. Sometimes, I will stay for more waiting for the 25 minutes to pass. However, at some point, I see my brain is just forced to start doing something on the task. Finally, I get the job done.

Sometimes, before the 25minutes are done, I will even be bored. I simply stay and wait for the minutes to pass, and in the course of waiting, I plunge myself back into the work. 

This technique really helps and I encourage you to try it out. You don’t need anything new to test it out. Simply set the timer on your phone and become productive. 

Drug #2: the countdown technique

Another technique, I see people using to fight procrastination is to set a countdown, say from 5 and once it reaches 0, they bounce on the task they had set. 

It is like firing an engine into space. You see how NASA usually sets its counter before doing so. Likewise, you set a counter before jumping to the task. The counter prepares your mind and gives you some momentum to jump into the task.

4. Summary

In summary, I want to tell you this:

• Don’t let procrastination kill you and your dreams
• Apply the 25-minute rule to cure the illness and discover a version of yourself that you are proud of.
• Start applying it today

Acknowledgements:

Much of these writings were inspired by Barbara Oakley’s course on Learning how to learn. Many thanks to her for teaching such invaluable skills