How to stop procrastination.2 proven ways according to psychology

The very first step in this is to notice what is going on in those moments

having trouble getting started or when you are getting distracted.

This is something I picked up from Psychiatrist Judson Brewer. He gave a talk called “a simple way to break bad habits” where he talks about how you

can use mindfulness to stop cravings that lead to bad habits.

Judson described an incredibly successful experiment designed to help people abstain

from cigarette smoking. People were instructed to simply be curious about their smoking cravings when they appeared.

The point was to analyze and understand that craving. To not focus on “oh my god, I need a cigarette.”

but to focus on “Oh I suppose I’m a little tired or irritated with this slow internet,

so I am expecting a cigarette would make me less uncomfortable.” Just by taking a moment to really understand the craving, the participants had unprecedented success with abstaining from smoking.

So I started trying this when I was working and analyzed what was going on in my head

When I was having trouble staying on task.

Usually it was something I could put my finger on: I was irritated with how slowly I was progressing in the project, or I suddenly started wondering when Saturn was discovered, or I just really wanted to watch an episode of the Simpsons. Taking notice of the craving to get distracted helped way more than I expected.

It was enough to be able to say “That’s a stupid reason to stop working…” and the craving would pass.

Unfortunately it didn’t work all the time. This is where part 2 comes in.

Second way to stop procrastination.

The second part comes from human behavior master BJ Fogg. BJ describes in his TED talk how there are 2 very effective ways to create new positive habits: 1 you can Change your environment or 2 you can tack the habit you want to create onto an existing behavior. With the second method, BJ talks about how he was able to get in about a 100 pushups

a day by simply pairing a new behavior – pushups, with an existing behavior – going to the bathroom. So every time he got up to pee, he would do two pushups. You might say “Why not 10 at a time, he could do 500 pushups per day” the small number is important to the likelihood of him doing it. you can read the full article here

Or here https://improvetechnique.blogspot.com/2020/11/how-to-stop-procrastination-by-proven-methods .html