Procrastinate, Concrastinate.
There’s a difference. Learn why you really can’t get shit done.
Hey. Hi. Hello. It’s been a while. I haven’t written an article in forever. Have you? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe you’ve been concrastinating. Maybe you’ve been sitting there eating cheezits until 2:00am and huffing mountain dew while binge watching Keeping Up With The Kardashians.
I implore you to stop doing that. Start procrastinating like a bad-ass instead of just a straight-up ass.
I’m going to tell you how to stop concrastinating, and the differences between both terms in the article that follows.
It starts with the Cycle Of Shame, then moves on towards the definition of Concrastination which is a word I just decided is now a real thing just now even, then the definition of Procrastination. And finally a closing statement on how to fix this shittery.
Procrastination starts with the Cycle of Shame.
See, mom, I know how to write a persuasive essay. And it wasn’t even the night before it was due! I know I left my brother at his soccer practice. That’s not the point.
The Cycle Of Shame
Medium.com makes it a huge point to shit all over the habits of procrastinators, and a lot of procrastinators are actually people with attention deficit issues. Like myself.
We attention-starved humanoids have a huge issue with staying on task with things we don’t like to do. It’s painfully apparent that our lack of focus is a detrimental problem when we’ve been putzing with a fidget toy for exactly 7 hours straight and have done absolutely 0 work on the project that is due in exactly 1 hour.
I have first-hand experience with the prior specific problem. Stop looking at me like that.
And the answer to that dirge of focus is always the following: POMODORO, self discipline, NO MORE LISTS, POMODORO, MORE LISTS, turn off internet forever, wake up at 2am and go jogging, SHAME YOURSELF, eat more avocados, POMODORO.
Did I mention the freaking pomodoro technique?
We get into a cycle of shame here, us attention-lacking humans. We start to think we’re never going to finish anything, we think we keep missing out on our potential, and that we are just broken in some way.
Why can’t we focus like everyone else? We followed all the goddamn tips! Even people without an attention deficit disorder have these thoughts sometimes. Why can’t I just get the project done, then go out and do something fun?
Why can’t I just be normal and do my work like a normal person? — Said Every Procrastinator Ever.
Deep breath. Chill out for a second. You are not broken because you can’t focus. You just have to shift your focus and perspective.
Concrastination and You.
Otherwise known as “ idle hands are the devil’s workshop” or some other garbage, concrastination — which is a word I am making up — is when you literally don’t do shit.
You do not do a damn thing. Reddit, outside of researching something specific like why your cat has been chewing all the hair off of his stomach, is not doing anything. (It’s anxiety or some kindof skin irritation, FYI.)
Facebook is really not helping you do anything. Unless you are a marketer like me and actually have to use it for work. That is a test of willpower in and of itself for procrastinating marketers, let me tell you.
Same with twitter.
Pinterest might be helpful for categorizing ideas but even that is a time-suck.
If you aren’t learning about doing something in your free time, or doing it for that matter, you are literally doing nothing.
The only time this is good is when you need to relax, recharge, turn your brain off, or meditate or something. Becoming a potato should not be an all-day event or eat up 99.9% of your actual free time.
I’m going to give you something macabre, and you are going to have to deal with it. Repeat this phrase after me, out loud if you have to:
You have no idea how long your life is. If you do nothing today, and you get hit by a bus tomorrow, as you fade out of existence, will you regret your time?
If the answer is yes to that question, as dark as it is, you need to kick your ass into some kindof gear. High gear, medium gear, low gear — anything. You are not gearing right now.
You are concrastinating.
Procrastination and You.
I don’t like that this word has pro in front of it. I’m not going to bother diving into the root of the word in Latin or whatever because that will end up with me concrastinating on reddit for the last 20 minutes of my morning before I have to go to work.
I know myself enough to know that I’m going to concrastinate if I do that.
So I don’t.
Procrastination is the act of doing one task that is less or slightly less painful than the current task so you can avoid doing the task you actually need to do right now.
Cleaning the whole house because you don’t feel like doing the laundry is procrastination.
Procrastination is writing that song because you physically cannot bring yourself to start on your book report.
Not starting on that painting but actually instead cleaning out all your bags because you left a bunch of peanuts and receipts in them is procrastination.
Pro, to me, is defined as doing something. Procrastination is doing something to avoid doing something else.
You: Alright, so procrastination is different than concrastination...how do I deal?
Me: Procrastinate like a boss.
How to tame the Concrastination Chupacabra
It’s actually really easy. I’m going to tell you how.
Set yourself up with so many tasks, parts of which you can reasonably convince yourself you like doing, that your procrastination serves a purpose for.
And give yourself a large expanse of time to reasonably complete them.
Sound crazy? Yes. It is crazy. But, there’s a few reasons it works for me, and I think it can help you out too.
We don’t want to slip into concrastination, so here’s my process, down to the letter:
Write a to-do list. You have 5 minutes.
It’s going to be long and you are going to make it overly complicated with ten thousand steps or perhaps one thing like ‘become a CEO’ and that takes way too many steps and cannot be summed up in one damn to-do list item.
Rewrite the to-do list. You have 5 minutes.
Scrap that list. This time write down at the top of it the #1 thing you HAVE to get done that day. Include a bunch of tiny things you don’t necessarily need to do but are important too.
Think about Future You. Treat yourself like your best friend, and try to do things that will help out Future You. This stops concrastination in it’s tracks. Respecting Future You and loving them means you don’t want to put them into a shitty situation.
Get started on that #1 item as soon as you can.
If you start to feel your knees get weak and palms get sweaty, something something, mom’s spaghetti, which I often do, do the following:
Shift focus and purposefully bore yourself.
If you must watch a TV show while you do your work, put something inane on like CSI which starts to bore everyone after the 5th procedural crime episode outlining some type of serial killer who gets caught 5 minutes before the end of the episode. (Every damn time.)
Make it interesting enough that you can stare at it for a few minutes, but boring enough that you actually shift your focus because it’s really rather dull.
You’ll shift over from thinking TV is the fun thing you want to be doing, to thinking that anything is better than watching another neon glowy light montage of pulling fake organs out of fake dead bodies to some shitty techno music.
Congratulations, you’ve just bored yourself into completing your important task. Hell yes.
Take a little break, and limit that break. Set a timer if you…yes, it’s pomodoro-esque…shut up.
Build in enough time to do what you need.
I know this sound counter intuitive.
You: But Kira, I thrive under pressure, if I have 3 hours to do what I need to do, I won’t do it or I’ll still wait till the last moment!
Well okay, that’s fair, but what if you spent that time purposefully distracting yourself while working at the same time?
Then you’ll have interspersed some distraction and work into a whole 3 hour time span and now it’s done and you don’t feel so shitty.
Remember when I said don’t concrastinate, and don’t do nothing?
‘Nothing’ does not include the following:
Clearing your mind.
Focusing on the day’s tasks and organizing your life.
Showering.
Cleaning up.
Dancing around a bit to get yourself psyched up.
Eating food.
Petting the cat.
Singing at the top of your lungs.
Goofing off with your partner.
The only time those things are considered ‘concrastination’ worthy is when they interfere with things you need to do and you are putting off your big task.
Here’s the secret to procrastination, which is what I touched on earlier when it came to actually harnessing this power for good.
Procrastination means doing.
Switch your focus if one task bores you or your mind starts to wander. But let your mind wander mindfully and with purpose. This is the power of procrastination.
If you followed my tips earlier and made a to-do list, gave yourself enough time to complete your tasks for the day, and made sure to whittle down the tasks a bit, you will flow in and out of them through varying degrees of interest.
Yes, that is what happens.
You get bored of one task, you flip to another part of another task, and by the end of the day you’ve made some progress in many different areas.
Now write down that progress so you can feel good about it, and plan for what you need to do for tomorrow.
Seems crazy. There’s no way this works.
Yeah, it goes against everything people say about how brains work optimally.
It goes against the idea that multitasking is Actually Satan.
It goes against fighting your reward system, and instead, nurtures it.
It goes against pomodoro and hyper-focusing on shit you don’t like.
It goes against our procrastinatory nature to want to do things last minute.
It goes against giving yourself a hard and fast time limit.
It goes against the Cycle of Shame.
Here it is again, to remind you:
- Come up with a to-do list that is completely not doable.
- Rewrite it and figure out your #1 goal for the day.
- Put in some smaller actionable goals.
- Think about your Future Self. Put his or her needs first.
- Turn your distraction vice into a distraction bore.
- Build in enough time to do what you need.
- Switch focus in and out of your attentiveness.
- Get as much as you are able to get done.
- Record your progress and plan for tomorrow.
Seems common sense, right?
Trust me when I say this will probably not work for every procrastinator. Heck, it will probably only work for some of them. But for those few people who have tried everything and feel hopeless and helpless with their focus and attention, working with the procrastination beast might just do the trick.
There’s no reason we can’t feed our vices and demons while also working towards goals. And there’s no reason why our vices and demons need to control us.
Think about your Future Self, and stop concrastinating. Where your effort wants to travel, travel there, until the last thing you need to do is before your feet.
Finally you can vanquish procrastination. By using it like a weapon of focus.
— Kira Leigh
