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5 Mistakes Procrastinators Make (And How To Avoid Them...)

2022-08-02 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali · recording, 7:32 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Productivity and time · mode: List of tips or lessons · tags: Feel-Good Productivity thesis

Ali lists five mistakes procrastinators make, himself included: mistaking prioritisation for procrastination, beating themselves up, pressing the try-harder button, treating themselves as humans rather than systems, and pushing the boulder up the hill instead of making a task energising.

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: five mistakes procrastinators make

00:00:09 — Mistake one: real versus fake procrastination

  • ★★★ Ali's first mistake of procrastinators is confusing fake procrastination with real: you only procrastinate on something, such as starting a YouTube channel, if you physically have the time for it and want to do it; otherwise it is prioritisation. — 00:00:25

    “real procrastination and fake procrastination”

  • ★★★ Ali's rule: something does not count as procrastination unless he has a block for it in his calendar; without one he has chosen not to prioritise it, and skipping a scheduled block, such as the gym from 6 to 7 p.m., is real procrastination. — 00:00:54 · time-blocking

00:01:23 — Mistake two: beating ourselves up

  • ★★ Ali has been doing a lot of research on procrastination for the book he is writing. — 00:01:23 · Feel-Good Productivity (book)
  • ★★ Ali says procrastination is an evolutionarily useful mechanism, a short-term bias: our ancestors, who could be eaten by a tiger, had to optimise for the present moment and short-term gains. — 00:01:23
  • ★★ Ali says procrastination is useful in that it lets us conserve energy, time and effort instead of spending them on things that might not be worth it to us. — 00:02:09
  • ★★ When he procrastinates, Ali finds it helpful to tell himself it is fine, just what evolution designed him to do, and then to take control through systems rather than flagellate himself. — 00:02:09
  • ★★★ Ali's second mistake of procrastinators is beating themselves up, which he thinks is a big part of why procrastination is a struggle for so many people, himself included. — 00:02:38

00:02:50 — Mistake three: pressing the try-harder button

  • ★★★ Ali's third mistake of procrastinators is pressing the try-harder button, telling yourself you just need to sit down, try harder or be more disciplined; crediting his friend Neel Nanda for the idea, he says it just does not work. — 00:03:32 · the try-harder button
  • ★★ Ali thinks the try-harder button fails in life generally: if your solution to a problem is just to try harder, that is not a sustainable way to be productive or to live. — 00:03:32 · the try-harder button

00:04:00 — Mistake four: treating ourselves as people rather than systems

  • ★★ Ali's systems for going to the gym: a gym that is closer and that he enjoys, a personal trainer, an accountability buddy in his videographer Gordon, tracking workouts in the app Strong and sharing screenshots on Instagram, and a clear plan. — 00:04:58 · Instagram
  • ★ Ali still does not go to the gym very often, but he says his gym systems help and reduce his procrastination. — 00:04:58

  • ★★★ Ali's fourth mistake of procrastinators is treating themselves as humans who can just put in more effort: think of yourself as a system and design one that makes the task much easier to do, as a computer only runs faster when its code changes. — 00:05:34 · the try-harder button

    “think of yourself as a system, not as a human”

00:05:50 — Mistake five: pushing the boulder up the hill

  • ★★★ Ali's fifth mistake of procrastinators is pushing the boulder up the hill: forcing yourself to do something you do not really want to do, that is not energising, enjoyable, interesting or meaningful, because you think you should. — 00:06:03

    “that's like pushing a boulder up the hill”

  • ★★ Pushing the boulder up the hill, forcing yourself through boring work, works some of the time, Ali says, but is not a source of sustainable motivation or of productivity that leaves room for fun and a nice life. — 00:06:29

  • ★★★ When a task feels boring, Ali thinks in terms of systems and asks how to make it energising: what to tweak in his approach or in the task itself so that it regenerates his energy rather than drains it. — 00:06:29 · energisers and drainers, feel-good productivity (concept)
  • ★ One way Ali suggests to make a boring task more enjoyable is gamification, which he covers in his video on the eight principles of the Octalysis Framework. — 00:06:58

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Mentioned

Central: fake procrastination · pushing the boulder up the hill · the try-harder button

Also: People: Gordon

Works: Feel-Good Productivity (book)

Organizations: Instagram

Concepts: accountability buddy · energisers and drainers · gamification · Octalysis Framework · present bias · time-blocking

Products: Strong

Only in the description or credits: Neel Nanda

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