Procrastinators: Monkeys Control Your Minds. That’s How to Regain Control
Four steps to defeat procrastination based on the famous TED talk.
If you’re a writer, you’ve probably fought procrastination once or twice in your life. Or multiple times.
In fact, according to Tim Urban’s TED talk, we are all procrastinators in one aspect in our lives. We all have at least one topic — or many — in which we delay the inevitable.
Until the dreadful deadline comes, and we panic.
Here are four steps to decrease procrastination, defeat insecurities, and increase productivity, based on Tim Urban and my own experience.
Step One: Understand the Procrastinator’s Mind
According to Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator, there are two kinds of brains. One of the non-procrastinators. And one of the master procrastinators.
Inside the mind of non-procrastinators, a smiling guy with a tailor made suit steers the wheel. He is the decision maker guy. The one who plans ahead and looks at the bigger picture. The calculated, responsible one.
The kind of guy you bring home to meet the parents.
On the other hand, the one who navigates the mind of a master procrastinator is a more hairy guy. He has the attention span of a spoon. He likes to jump from one thing to another with only one goal in mind: having fun.
You have guessed it. It’s a monkey.
When we have a task to complete with a defined deadline, the monkey and the decision maker guy fight for control. The monkey wins, has fun, wins, then has fun again. Until the deadline is almost here, or a danger is around the corner — like public embarrassment.
That’s when the monkey’s long-time nemesis enters the picture: the Panic Monster.
The more we get closer to that dreadful deadline, the more our panic will raise. And according to Tim Urban, that’s when we achieve results. They may not be of high quality, but at least we haven’t reached the deadline empty handed.
Step Two: Understand Long-Term Procrastination
Unfortunately, not all tasks have a deadline. Being an entrepreneur is an excellent example for that. No one will give you a deadline to start chasing your dreams.
And the worst part? There is no Panic Monster to equalize the equation because nothing has happened yet.
With long-term procrastination we can get stuck in an endless loop. A loop of trying and failing. Trying to raise above fears and self doubts only to plunge back into them. Over and over again for years.
Eventually, long-term procrastination leaves us in a hollow, miserable place.
Step Three: Use the Life Calendar
Tim Urban finishes his genius TED talk with one effective tool to wake up the Panic Monster: the Life Calendar.
The Life Calendar is a 4,680-box board. Every box is a week. In a 90-year lifetime, that’s 4,680 boxes.
If you think of every week you have — and let’s all pray you reach the age of 90 and beyond — you don’t have many weeks to begin with. 4,680 weeks will pass in a blur if you don’t start acting soon.
And by soon, I mean right now.
Step Four: Create a System
Now that we have woken the Panic Monster from its sleep, let’s take it one step further. Tim Urban doesn’t mention that method in his video. But from my experience, setting deadlines is crucial to fight off procrastination.
When you set a deadline, you turn the long-term procrastination into a short-term one. Does that mean any deadline can work?
Absolutely not.
How many times have you said to yourself you’ll do something, but not today — you’ll start tomorrow? If I had to guess, that tomorrow turned into the day after, that turned into next week. That turned into never.
If a deadline doesn’t feel like a deadline, the Panic Monster will stay dormant. It will stay at its cave, peacefully dreaming, while self doubts and fears pile in your head.
Which is why I found a system that helps me create effective deadlines and reach my goals:
- Split the goal into doable milestones — no deadline will ever be effective if the due task is unreachable. You can’t start your own business and achieve success within the first day, week, month — and sometimes even a year.
Take the long-term goal and divide it into a detailed plan. What is the goal, how are you going to achieve it (not in theory, but practically), and when do you want to reach each milestone.
- Set close deadlines — saying you’ll start doing something tomorrow is a great way to begin. But it can’t end there. You have to set the next deadline not long after to keep the Panic Monster at bay.
Set each deadline at a reasonable time after the last one. When you set the plan, consider: letting yourself time to recharge every now and then and giving yourself time to celebrate the milestones you have accomplished. But also be flexible. If you didn’t reach a milestone in time, it’s not the end of the road. Keep going and be patient with yourself.
- Schedule your day — what helps me reach my goals is planning my day while using spare time. When I know I have time to work on my Medium blog, the Panic Monster is present, along with the easy-going monkey.
Scheduling your day will give you time to breathe. You have a specific time you dedicate for working on achieving your dreams. Use spare time — like a bus or a subway drive — to come up with new ideas. To schedule your day better.
- Share the deadline —when you have someone who knows when your deadline is, it turns into a shared goal. You have someone who motivates you. Someone who can remind you the deadline is close. Someone who can lift you up when times get rough.
- Avoid distractions — if there is one thing that can make you postpone a deadline is distractions. Instead of falling into their traps, put them aside: turn off your internet, tell your loved ones you can’t be distracted for the next few hours. Put your phone away where you can’t easily reach it.
Whatever distractions that tempt you, understand what they are first. Then put them aside.
Final Thoughts
Whether you are a non-procrastinator or a master procrastinator, Tim Urban may be onto something. We all procrastinate something in our lives. We all let that life-of-the-party-monkey take control once in a while.
There is nothing wrong with that.
Sometimes, we need to let the monkey roam free. We need to let him take control to enjoy the fun in life. We need to maintain balance or we will burn out.
The problem starts when we want to achieve our goals and most of them don’t have deadlines or expiration dates. We have to be disciplined enough to start chasing them. If you build a strong, balanced system, there is no reason why you shouldn't be able to chase your dreams.
In fact — you may just achieve them.
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Until next time.
