Solving the Procrastination Puzzle: a Practical Guide to Finally Get Started
How often do you find yourself putting off things until tomorrow ? Does “tomorrow” ever come? In Solving the Procrastination Riddle, you’ll learn what makes you procrastinate, how it can negatively affect your life, and some practical ways to deal with it.
This is part of the Lifehacker book review series . Not all life hacks can be described on a blog, so we decided to look at some of our favorite life changing books to dive deeper into the most important topics in life.
Timothy A. Peachil, Ph.D., Solving the Procrastination Puzzle: A Brief Guide to Strategies for Change is actually based on nearly twenty years of research into procrastination. Pichilemu many years writing about procrastination and how to overcome it dark forces in the blog Psychology Today «Do not put off ‘ , as well as leading podcast iProcrastinate , which has been downloaded millions of times. On Pychyl’s website, procrastination.ca , you can find out more about his research group and find tons of scientific publications on the topic.
Who is this book for?
This book is for anyone who procrastinates or thinks “they work better under pressure.” The solution to the riddle of procrastination is full of research-backed explanations for why we procrastinate and how your mind tricks you into misjudging your abilities. Pihil’s use of language makes the concepts sound and easy to understand, and if you read quickly, you can probably read an entire book in a couple of hours. It’s self-help, but its advice is simple and well-founded, and shipping is simplified so you only learn what you need. As Pichil immediately explains, this book covers psychological research in a way that is accessible to those who do not usually read about psychological research.
Finally, this book is for you if you are reading it right now and not doing what you should.
What do you get
In Solving the Procrastination Riddle, you’ll learn the important difference between delaying and postponing your tasks. You will also see how the seemingly harmless consequences of your procrastination can worsen over time and negatively affect your personal well-being, as well as the well-being of those around you. The book is filled with tips to help you learn to regulate your need to always feel good in the moment, so you can get started on any task, no matter how you feel about it. In each chapter, Pihil uses real-life examples or stories to make the discussed concepts and strategies clear to everyone. Here’s what you’ll learn from several key chapters in the book:
- From the chapter “Is Procrastination Really a Problem?” You will find that research shows that procrastination often leads to lousy jobs (despite what people say about “good work under pressure”), poor health, and that procrastination is unlikely to make you feel happier about procrastination. As Pichil explains, “ Procrastination is a problem of not being able to live as such . When we postpone our goals, we are our own worst enemies. These are our goals … When we postpone our goals, we basically postpone our lives. “
- In the chapter “Why We Don’t Feel Like Tomorrow,” you’ll learn that always saving things for tomorrow is a problem, because more often than not, “tomorrow” never comes. You’ll also learn why it’s so good to say that you’ll do something later , even if you know it’s not a good idea overall. For example, when you decide to postpone work now, you feel rewarding in the moment (hooray, free time!), And the intention to act tomorrow (“I’ll do it in the morning”) can lead to rewards. myself for such an initiative. Procrastination becomes a way for you to create your own short-term happiness as a coping mechanism that you actually create for yourself.
- In the chapter on Justification and Self-Deception, you will learn the psychology behind why you say things like “this shouldn’t happen in a few weeks,” “I can finish this in a couple of hours,” and “I work better under pressure. … »Excuses come in all shapes and sizes, and they probably hide the real reason you can’t buckle up and get to work. This has nothing to do with laziness and has more to do with some strong cognitive biases. For example, procrastination can be a way of self-restraint. If you wait until the last minute to do something and it turns out to be great, it’s a tremendous achievement. If you do the same, but it fails, you can say that you still didn’t have that much time for it. Understanding these biases makes it much easier to manage procrastination.
- In the chapter “Willpower, Willpower: If We Only Had Willpower,” you will learn that building willpower is like building muscle. If you don’t do this, you won’t get stronger. Your willpower can be depleted and procrastination can turn into an endless cycle of lost motivation. When willpower fades, you need to stop and remember why it was important for you to complete the task in the first place. Focus on your intention to complete the task rather than how you are feeling at the moment.
Each chapter also includes exercises to help you become more aware of your procrastination tendencies and how these tendencies can cause problems in other areas of your life. Pihil provides blank charts and charts for the book that you can fill out and do the exercises, but he also suggests that doing the exercises mentally can be just as effective. I tried all the exercises mentally as I read the book and actually found them to be quite effective. It’s not easy to do, but addressing procrastination issues can draw attention to your inefficiency. When your problems are revealed, it will be much easier to catch yourself doing what causes your procrastination problems in the first place. You don’t need to write anything down, but don’t skip the exercises; They are helping.
One trick you won’t succeed
While there is a solid selection of helpful tips in every chapter of this book, I had one personal favorite. You probably already know what role motivation plays in achieving your goals, but the concept of “need for motivation” can also be an excuse in itself. Pihil offers a simple mantra to avoid falling into the trap “I need motivation to get started”:
“My current motivation doesn’t have to match my intention in order to act.”
This is a common misconception about goal pursuit: we think we really need to feel it. We don’t. And with many challenges in our lives, we don’t even want to … never! The point is that our motivational state does not have to correspond to intention. We can do something even if we don’t feel like it. Parents spend a lot of time explaining this to their children.
However, somewhere along the way, we forget. We wait and hope that one day we will finally wake up and “feel it”, but this does not happen. However, motivation can arise from getting started and gaining some traction. To overcome your motivational excuses, Pihil offers a technique called “realization intent.” Basically, it is an “if-then” trigger that you create for yourself. For example, if you find yourself thinking, “I just don’t feel like doing this right now,” then you should tell yourself that you only need to work on it for a few minutes. As we said, getting started is everything , and even a few minutes of work is better than nothing. Self-awareness is the key to defeating procrastination, and it takes practice to catch yourself trying to find the easy way out, so find the realization intention that works for you and run with it.
Our opinion
Solving the puzzle of procrastination is the perfect guide to dealing with one of productivity’s worst enemies. All information presented in the book is based on legitimate research and translated into an understandable form for everyone. If a term needs an explanation, Pihil will explain it. Otherwise, most of the book is just a practical procrastination expert sitting in his reclined chair like a school counselor trying to catch up with you. There are no magic tricks here, no shortcuts, and the mantras serve as simple reminders for each basic concept. Peachil strongly emphasizes that overcoming procrastination requires much more effort than reading a book, and at some point even suggests that you stop reading if you cannot accept the fact that you need to take action to change.
However, for all the virtues of the book, there are a few aspects that some people might not like. Throughout the book, there are comics specially written and drawn to help explain some of the concepts in each chapter. Some of them are funny, but most just seem a little trivial, and they really don’t seem necessary when Peachil already explains the concepts well enough with his real life examples. Fortunately, they are easy to miss. In addition, the book is not one page longer than it should be. It may sound too short to be worthwhile for some, but rest assured, Solving the Procrastination Riddle is a handy guide without all the unnecessary bullshit you find in many other self-help books.
Peachil deliberately shortened the book, and even talks about why he thought it was important that the book on procrastination not be too time-consuming. And while it reads quickly, it doesn’t feel subtle, and you are still presented with a lot of detail about the important research mentioned in the book. Peachil explains where you can learn more about research on procrastination, but he also cautions that reading too much about procrastination is just another way to procrastinate. A little procrastination here and there is n’t always bad for you , but if you’re looking for a straightforward book to get you off the ground, this one is definitely worth adding to your list.
You can get The Procrastination Riddle Solving: A Brief Guide to Positive Change Strategies in paperback or on the Amazon Kindle for about $ 12. You can also read more about procrastination on the Pychyl website .