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How to Beat Procrastination

2021-03-31 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali · recording, 12:08 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Productivity and time · mode: Explanation and tutorial · tags: Lesson from a book, Sponsor segment present, His own products discussed

Ali answers how to beat procrastination with three points from Steven Pressfield's The War of Art: know the enemy, the resistance that fear fuels and that points to what matters most; become a professional; and banish the ego, which for him means input goals rather than outcome goals.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Intro: the blank page, the second most common question, The War of Art

  • ★★★ Ali says his answer to how to beat procrastination, the second most common question he gets, is in Steven Pressfield's book The War of Art. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ Steven Pressfield (quoted): Steven Pressfield says most of us have two lives, the life we live and the unlived life within us, and between the two is the resistance. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ Ali first read The War of Art in 2017; he says it completely changed how he approaches life and meaningful productivity and helped him stop being a chronic procrastinator. — 00:00:29

00:00:50 — Knowing the enemy: resistance, fear as a compass, a model for decision-making

  • ★★★ Ali explains the resistance as the force that stops us from doing what we know will level up our lives, creative, entrepreneurial or risky things, rather than from watching Netflix or playing video games. — 00:00:58 · Netflix
  • ★★ Ali says he has heard many times people say they will start a YouTube channel or a podcast at some point but the timing, gear or kudos are not right; he calls all of this resistance. — 00:01:27

  • ★★ Steven Pressfield (quoted): Pressfield's rule of thumb: resistance is fuelled by fear, and the more resistance you experience, the more important your unmanifested art, project or enterprise is to you. — 00:01:56

    “the more resistance you experience, the more important your unmanifested art or project or enterprise is to you”

  • ★★ Ali feels no resistance to sitting down to play World of Warcraft but does to writing his book, which tells him writing the book is currently the most important thing for him to work on. — 00:02:26 · World of Warcraft

  • ★★★ Since 2017 Ali uses fear as a model for decision-making: if he feels scared about doing something, he more often than not tries his very best to do it. — 00:02:49
  • ★★ Ali says that so far he has never regretted doing something he was scared of, but has always regretted not doing something he was scared of. — 00:02:49

00:03:15 — Becoming a professional rather than an amateur

  • ★★ Steven Pressfield (quoted): Pressfield contrasts the amateur, who acts when inspiration strikes and is not committed, with the professional, who shapes their life so the work is a priority; becoming a professional is the only way to deal with resistance. — 00:03:18
  • ★★ Ali finds it interesting that Pressfield does not define a professional as someone who makes money from the thing, but as someone who does it for the sake of the work and takes pride in it. — 00:03:18
  • ★★ Ali says a professional works through adversity and is open to criticism to improve, while an amateur is hurt by a bad comment; a professional grows from the feedback. — 00:03:48
  • ★★ Working as a doctor, Ali goes to work even on mornings he does not feel like it, as part of the daily battle, and says we should take that attitude to creative and entrepreneurial work. — 00:04:46
  • ★★ Ali says treating hobbies professionally can go too far, and there is something to be said for not monetising all of them: a hobby like the guitar is fun if it makes a bit of money, but relying on it for a living would make it less fun. — 00:05:15
  • ★★ From the book's third point, banish the ego, Ali explains that the ego is focused on external events and how others see us, while the self is an inner calm; through the self we beat resistance. — 00:05:44

00:05:55 — Banishing the ego: self versus ego, growth mindset, input goals versus outcome goals

  • ★ Ali finds some of The War of Art a bit woo-woo for his liking, such as creative endeavours as a new plane of existence with resistance as the devil in the way. — 00:06:14
  • ★★ Ali likens self versus ego to growth versus fixed mindset: with a fixed mindset negative feedback damages the ego, while with a growth mindset failing is part of improving over time. — 00:06:43
  • ★★★ Ali gets much more resistance, or procrastination, with goals based on outcomes outside his control, such as views or subscribers; wanting a video to be really good brings perfectionism until he does not make it at all. — 00:07:12
  • ★★ Ali says he has seen this with every student of his Part-Time YouTuber Academy: thinking a video must be good by others' judgement makes it really hard to make. — 00:07:41 · Part-Time YouTuber Academy
  • ★★★ Ali prefers most of his goals to be input goals, entirely within his control; his examples are making two videos a week for the rest of his life and writing the best book he can, or one he is happy with. — 00:07:41
  • ★★ Ali has recently been thinking about his book hitting the New York Times bestseller list; any thought of that outcome goal makes him procrastinate, while "write the best book I can" makes it easier. — 00:08:11
  • ★★ Whenever Ali struggles with procrastination it is usually the resistance, usually because of an outcome goal tied to the task; outcome goals are bad for him personally, though they work for some people. — 00:08:40
  • ★★★ Ali's three ways of beating procrastination, from The War of Art: name the enemy, the resistance; become a professional; and banish the ego. — 00:08:40

00:09:05 — Audible sponsor read with fantasy audiobook recommendations

  • ★ For anyone new to audiobooks Ali recommends Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series, narrated by Michael Kramer; since listening from 2017, Sanderson has been his favourite author. — 00:09:25 · Mistborn, Brandon Sanderson

00:11:28 — Closing quote from the book and a playlist of book videos

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: process goals · resistance · Steven Pressfield · The War of Art

Also: People: Brandon Sanderson · Michael Kramer · Neil Gaiman

Projects: Part-Time YouTuber Academy

Works: Mistborn · Stardust · The Final Empire · The Stormlight Archive · The Wheel of Time

Organizations: Netflix · The New York Times

Concepts: growth mindset

Products: Audible · World of Warcraft

Also centred on process goals: How I Gained 1 MILLION Subscribers · My Toxic Relationship With Productivity

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